Caption: Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, left, and T&T Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar

Summary

• Public Utilities Minister Barry Padarath says Trinidad and Tobago’s United National Congress (UNC) is not involved in Barbados’ February 11 general election.
• His comments follow Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s remarks questioning a “yellow is the code” reference made by DLP leader Ralph Thorne on Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT).
• Mottley suggested the phrase could imply campaign financing or external political influence and said Barbados’ parties would not be “subservient” to parties in Trinidad and Tobago or Jamaica.
• Padarath warned against such inferences, saying party colours are often similar across countries and the UNC does not interfere in other nations’ elections.
• He said Trinidad and Tobago will respect Barbados’ election outcome and that entertainers or influencers performing there do not represent the UNC politically.

PUBLIC Utilities Minister Barry Padarath on Friday said the opposition United National Congress (UNC) is playing no role in the February 11 general election in Barbados.

His comments follow statements by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley after the leader of the main opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP), Ralph Thorne, appeared on state-owned Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) and said “yellow is the code”—a reference to the UNC’s campaign slogan used during Trinidad and Tobago’s April 28 general election last year.

“I tell you yellow is the curse about here,” Mottley told supporters of her ruling Barbados Labour Party (BLP), which is seeking an unprecedented third consecutive clean sweep of the 30-member Parliament.

“And what is that really a code for? Is it a code for campaign financing? Is it a code for who is supporting your party financially? Because if that is the case, (former prime minister) Errol Walton Barrow should now be rolling in a watery grave to believe that anybody leading the Democratic Labour Party could want to make that party subsidiary to another political entity in the Caribbean.”

Mottley said Barrow stood “shoulder to shoulder” with the late Trinidad and Tobago prime minister Dr Eric Williams and that, over the years, other Barbadian leaders had done the same with their Trinidad and Tobago counterparts.

“I have stood shoulder to shoulder with (former prime minister) Dr Keith Rowley and the same Kamla,” she said, referring to Trinidad and Tobago’s Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Mottley said the Barbados Labour Party would not be “subservient” to any party in Trinidad and Tobago, and she also dismissed suggestions that the BLP had been taking advice from Jamaica’s ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

“First of all, anybody who knows anything about us knows our sister party in Jamaica is the People’s National Party, and even though they are not in government we are not fair-weather friends,” she said, adding that she has visited Jamaica on numerous occasions to address People’s National Party conventions.

But speaking to reporters outside the Parliament building in Port of Spain, Padarath sought to distance the UNC from any involvement in the campaign ahead of next week Wednesday’s general election in the fellow Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country.

“I would want to issue caution to our Caribbean colleagues with respect to using that sort of inference. The United National Congress—we have said both publicly and privately that we do not interfere in the elections of any other sovereign nation, and we hold true to that.

“Obviously, though, many of our party colours across the Caribbean and the world are quite similar. We don’t have any control or jurisdiction over those things. So I hope that, in the silly season in Barbados, those inferences are not made, because we really and truly do not have any horse in the race there.”

The DLP’s colour is blue.

Padarath said a UNC government would respect the “will of the people of Barbados” and that the outcome of the election would be respected by the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

Asked whether Barbadian voters would see UNC-aligned social media influencers and entertainers on stage in Barbados—as had been the case in St Vincent and the Grenadines and St Lucia—Padarath replied: “We know that (Yellow is the code) is quite a catchy song, but most of the persons you have spoken about…they all came from the entertainment fraternity before entering the political stage.

“They have every right to perform if they are hired to do so. But they do not speak or sing on behalf of the United National Congress in support of one political party over another in a sovereign nation.”

Padarath said he had a message for Prime Minister Mottley: “Let not your heart be troubled, Honourable Prime Minister. The will of the people in Barbados, I am almost certain, will be done, and we respect the democratic process because Barbados is a sovereign nation.

“We have no intention of interfering in Barbados elections,” he added. (CMC)