President of the Democratic Labour Party Dr David Estwick is charging that the lives of Barbadians have deteriorated since the Barbados Labour Party swept into office in 2018.
He told party faithful at a St Michael East constituency meeting at the St Giles Primary School on Sunday evening: “I say to you Barbadians, you are now forgotten by the Barbados Labour Party that [came] with illusions of economic magic, public relations and their dreams – sold to you as reality. Some of you followed them.
“You marched in the streets. You attended town hall meetings. You actually went to something called holding hands campaigns. They had the rubbing shoulders campaign, and had the Covenant of Hope, had the People’s Assembly, walk for justice, meet and greet. And Bajans just fell for that. The reality is that there is no person in Barbados today that can say their lives are better off now. No person,” he declared.
Estwick said if Barbadians were honest with themselves, they could look and see that every social sector in the country was also worse off.
“So we have to be brutally honest and understand that what we are dealing with here is the old saying in Barbados. That is, the grass is always greener on the other side until you get there. Well, we are there now, and the grass is brown for most Barbadians.”
The president said he agreed with a number of questions from a particular writer which Barbadians must ask themselves: “How did we move from an era when families could aspire to save a little, build a home, educate their children, purchase a car and enjoy a holiday, to one in which every household earning a salary today has to be considered uncomfortable, struggling to make ends meet? And how did Barbados, once celebrated throughout the entire Caribbean for its educated population and its relatively high standards of living and well-established middle class, political stability and strong institutions, now reach a point where, despite the Government boasting of historically low unemployment, so many ordinary citizens continue to experience economic insecurity?
“Don’t mind all the fancy talk. The reality is what people are facing on a day-to-day basis,” he said.
As he offered members of the branch a peek into the party’s policies to overcome the economic challenges, Estwick called for general unity among Barbadians.
“This call for unity does not ignore the fact that this party needs the political authority to exercise power on behalf of the people of this country. Put simply, we need to win the next election,” he said. (JS)