Thorne: We will have good days again

First-timer Felicia Dujon went down in a bruising defeat to the Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) Chad Blackman, another first-timer, but she and leader of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), Ralph Thorne, have vowed to keep the pressure on him in the name of the St James North residents.

In the quiet of their second constituency office at Rock Dundo, St James, around 11:27 p.m. Dujon, who had three weeks of campaigning, and Thorne conceded to Blackman, who gained 2 723 votes to her 468.

Dujon managed to outperform her DLP predecessor in the 2022 poll, Charles Worrell, in box SA4 with 81 votes compared to his 39, but overall she did not reach his 608.

Thorne said the voter turnout in a constituency with 8 538 was about 38 per cent and no political institution could be satisfied with less than 50.

Thanked supporters

“We’ve lost before, we’ve won before, and we will probably lose again and I am absolutely certain that we are going to win again. That is politics, that is life, that is how it goes. Some days are bad days, some days are good days. I want to assure the members of this party that we are going to have good days again,” Thorne said as he also thanked supporters.

The Opposition Leader said the party was interested in organising a society in which every Barbadian had a right to live comfortably and the DLP was not satisfied that the country was a safe place.

“Victory tonight would not have provided this country with safety. It may have provided this party with the safety of the satisfaction of victory but this country is still in peril and any time, as long as we recognise that this country continues to be in peril, this party will continue on its mission,” Thorne said.

The MP for Christ Church South said he could not at this point assess how the message from the DLP’s platform resonated with the voters.

“We explored all the media that were available and we had very, very good viewership online. As I said, our messages were serious. We confronted the issues. We knew that during the campaign, the two major issues confronting the lives of people in this country would have been crime and cost of living. So any message that did not embrace those two themes was a message that was misguided.

“And we stayed on those messages – cost of living and crime – and when we spoke with constituents, that’s what we were hearing quite a lot. The question of democracy, that became a message that was important,” he told reporters.

The question of democracy was also important to Barbadians, he said, adding: “Barbadians have seen what a lopsided institution called Parliament can do to a country.

“What it is doing to this country is not good. So that tonight, we may focus on victory and defeat, but let us focus on the future of this country and as I’ve said before and I repeat it, we are not, as a country, in a good place. We are convinced about that,” he said.

Thorne added that when the minority of people vote in an election, all parties must be concerned but he hoped that the General Election would have a larger turnout.

There were no regrets about the DLP’s platform, which Thorne said was of an extremely high quality.

Dujon thanked those who supported her, extended congratulations to Blackman and added that she did not see her defeat as a loss, but something to propel her to work “extra harder and to be in the constituency as often as possible”.

Voice of the people

She rejected the notion that something went wrong with her campaign and said she respected the voice of the people in a situation where she had three weeks against her opponent’s 12 months.

As to whether she would be running again when a General Election is called, Dujon said they were preparing for it.

“It means that I will continue to work on behalf of the people of St James North. When I started, I told you there were a number of concerns in this constituency and these concerns will not go away because someone got elected within this period of time. It doesn’t stop here tonight.

“We will continue to advocate and to champion the rights of the members of this constituency.

In relation to an early incident in which two residents who voted in the area in 2022 were assigned to another constituency and the Electoral and Boundaries Commission not acceding to their pleas, Thorne said since the disenfranchisement of the two did not affect the outcome, there would be no point challenging it in court. (AC)