YESTERDAY was Deposit Day, today is Nomination Day and tomorrow is Campaign Day.
And while the two candidates – Mara Thompson, carrying the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) ticket and businessman Hudson Griffith, flagbearer for the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) – may be first-timers to elective politics, they are both ready and raring to compete in the January 20 by-election in St John.
Yesterday morning, the two each paid their $250 deposits at the Government Treasury, and those receipts will be taken to The Lodge School today, with completed nomination papers that will ensure their names are on the ballot papers on January 20.
Then, the next big stop for Mara, widow of former Prime Minister David Thompson, will be the Gall Hill Community Centre tomorrow night, while Griffith, a former student of The Lodge School, will be heading to Edgecliff as the political party machinery gets into full gear for the platform launches of the respective parties.
There was not much fanfare in The City yesterday, but the MIDWEEK NATION understands both parties are gearing to get their supporters out and ready as the action moves into high gear in trying to woo the more than 8 000 eligible voters in St John, a traditional DLP stronghold.
An “undaunted” Griffith was the first to go to the Treasury at 10:45 a.m. Surrounded by a team of former Cabinet ministers and Members of Parliament, he said he had been out in the field since early November, and had been doing door-to-door campaigning for the past three weeks.
Up to now, he said, he was happy with the response since the people were anxious to express their concerns and “to listen”.
He has also been telling them of his plans to give residents the “representation” that he said has been lacking over several years. Should they vote him in and he not live up to their expectations, “vote me out”, he said.
More of what the BLP plans for St John would be revealed during the campaign, said Dale Marshall, former Attorney General and manager of Griffith’s campaign.
It was close to noon when Thompson, flanked by Minister of Education Ronald Jones, Minister of Health Donville Inniss and campaign manager Cleton Coppin arrived at the Treasury.
After paying her deposit, she told reporters that she was quietly confident of victory, and said it was almost laughable that the BLP could raise the issue of representation when they only established a branch office for “about two weeks” whenever an election was called.
She and Jones argued that the BLP had neglected St John for the 14 years that the party was in power, and that this matter would be rectified during the current DLP Administration.
This was backed up by Inniss, who, in making reference to a BLP criticism about the unfinished St John Polyclinic, told the Press that a state-of-the-art polyclinic would soon be unveiled to the people of St John.
Here, Mara Thompson (at right) and Hudson Griffith (at left), supported by present and former Cabinet ministers respectively, making their way to the Treasury in Bridgetown yesterday. Thompson is accompanied by Minister of Health Donville Inniss and Griffith by Peter Phillips, a former candidate for St Lucy.
