Opposition leader Owen Arthur appears to have no interest in either the St John by-election or the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) candidate Hudson Griffith, says Minister of Health Donville Inniss.
While stressing that he had no intention of telling the BLP how to conduct its political affairs, Inniss told the NATION he was dumbfounded that Arthur had chosen this juncture to go on a pleasure cruise when his party and Griffith needed him to mobilise their efforts.
Inniss said Arthur would have been aware of Griffith’s opening of a constituency branch office, as well as the need to be at the forefront of the new candidate’s efforts to sell himself to the constituents, but had chosen to be elsewhere.
The St James South MP said he felt inclined to speak on Arthur’s glaring absence since the Opposition often questioned the absence of Government ministers from Barbados for the most frivolous of reasons, whether they were on official business or personal leave.
Inniss said it was understandable why some within the BLP were now publicly claiming that the party had been weakened since Arthur had ousted Mia Mottley from its leadership. On Saturday during the opening of Griffith’s constituency branch office at Gall Hill, St John, Deputy Opposition Leader Dale Marshall apologised for Arthur’s absence, indicating his leader’s travel plans had been made before that event. (WG)
