THE TWO CANDIDATES in the Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) St George South nomination race have expressed confidence that today’s election process will be fair and transparent.
This follows reports that registration of members has been padded over the past few weeks to favour engineer Dwight Sutherland over schoolteacher and Wesleyan pastor Dr Beverley Lashley.
Some have also questioned the early nomination at 3 p.m. at the St George Secondary?School, Constant.
Yesterday, Lashley, recently returned from a religious trip to Jerusalem, told the SUNDAY SUN she was very confident of her chances going into the election.
When it was put to her that there were reports suggesting she was supposed to lose the election to Sutherland, she restated her belief in the integrity of the process.
Lashley, who has been canvassing the constituency since last August, indicated that the branch membership had been about 1 000 but had now reached about 1 800.
Sutherland, however, said it was “not possible” for anyone to join the branch within the last few weeks and be allowed to vote today.
“We have a cut-off time which was six weeks before the actual nomination date. So there is no truth to that about a heavy influx [of new members].
The process has been very transparent and very democratic. I would be surprised if there is a change to what I have seen within the last six weeks.”
He explained it was normal procedure for candidates to canvass and get “personality votes” or to seek out people who had not voted or registered before, but now expressed an interest, and have them sign on to a branch.
“It is a natural process. You either recruit members to support you or you just leave it to the branch,” Sutherland said, adding he was confident about winning today’s nomination.
The manner in which people have joined BLP branches has previously drawn comment from Leader of the Opposition Owen Arthur.
He is on record as stating that there should be an amendment to the BLP’s constitution requiring prospective members to be interviewed by the membership before gaining admittance.
