The following is an edited version
of Prime Minister David Thompson's address to the nation last night.

Fellow Barbadians, residents, citizens ... greetings.

I sincerely hope that you are enjoying this long weekend and you are taking time to recharge your batteries after
a hard and trying year. Quite understandably, the peace of Christmas is a little late this time around.

It is no coincidence that our general elections took place on 15th January and that the full Cabinet of the Government of Barbados will have been constituted by Monday 21st January – Martin Luther King's Day and Errol Barrow Day. I am convinced that the hand of God is in these historical developments.

On this doubly symbolic day, Barbadians can dream again! Like Martin Luther King, I too have a dream!

I have a dream that one day we shall live in a country that stands tall in the international community as a champion of human rights and enables ordinary people to enjoy a higher standard of living. I have a dream that the Barbados for which all of our National Heroes lived and nearly all died will actually come to fruition. It is a dream of:

A Barbados that is unified and free;

That is prosperous and kind;

That is just and equitable;

That is loving and caring;

A country in which poverty has been banished;

Where ignorance no longer exists,

Where fear and intimidation have no place, and where people can participate fully in the decision-making processes that affect their lives.

From this day onwards Barbadians will be able to draw again on the philosophy, the boldness, the commitment and the experience of the movement that the Rt Excellent Errol Walton Barrow established in order to realise that dream of ordinary Barbadians. I am persuaded, though, that we have what it takes as a people to go beyond that dream.

Overwhelming support

Indeed, I believe that the good people of Barbados in coming out in overwhelming numbers on 15th January and voting for change not only enabled us to win the elections, but also released the air of optimism and the pent-up creative energy to take on the challenges that plague this country.

Once again I thank all those Barbadians – particularly our young people – whose determination [it was]
to usher in a new era in Barbados.

As we set out on the pathways towards this dream, let me confess that I have been humbled by the overwhelming response of the people to our messages and the confidence they have placed in me to lead this country's march to achieving a better Barbados.

I am also humbled by the monumental task that we have before us. In our Pathways To Progress we have set high standards for Barbados. We have tried to be fair to ALL Barbadians. We have assured all sections of society in Barbados that there is a place in the better Barbados for everyone.

However, we must be mindful of the changing and difficult international context within which we shall be operating. It has been said that 2008 will be a time of serious economic depression and that small jurisdictions like Barbados will suffer from the fallout from instability in the large economies.

I have, therefore, to be realistic. We shall no doubt face many challenges in pursuing our people-centred agenda.

However, I firmly believe that if we in Barbados can pull together we can ride out any storm. It is precisely for this reason that I want this period to be a period of healing.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

The strongest message as your Prime Minister that I can send to you is that regardless of your age, gender, class or political affiliation, you have a part to play in the new Barbados. You do not have to be a minister of Government to make a contribution.

I therefore want to draw on the best brains available in Barbados to overcome the challenges that we shall face in the near future. As usual we shall build from the bottom up.

I am sure that the new constituency councils will give all Barbadians an opportunity to have their say and to help implement the promises we made in our manifesto.

In that regard, opportunities will be provided for all Barbadians, in all institutions of this society, to make their contribution to their communities and the development of a better Barbados.

This evening, I want to ensure that there is an injection of expertise in the governance of this fair land. I do not in any way want to belittle the many gifts we have available among the elected representatives. Neither do I want to sideline the highly competent and committed civil servants who translate policy into action.

What I want to do, in the best interest of Barbados, is to complement the talents already in place by introducing a number of ministers with skills in implementation and an understanding of some key technocratic issues to strengthen critical ministries.

My advisors and I have given considerable thought to the team we shall be fielding in the effort to take Barbados to a higher level of development.

I am appointing Ms Maxine McClean to the Senate as Leader of Government Business and as Minister in the Prime Minister's Office. Ms McClean is a management consultant who founded her own consulting firm, Strategic Interventions Inc. in 1999.

She is a graduate and former lecturer in the Department of Management Studies, UWI, Cave Hill Campus, where she taught for 17 1/2 years. She did graduate work at Ohio University, where she received an MBA in 1981 and an MA in international affairs in 1982.

During her academic career, she taught several management courses at UWI within the Department of Management Studies, in the Executive MBA and Executive Development Programmes of the Centre for Management Development, Barbados Institute of Management and Productivity (BIMAP) and Louisiana State University.

An active entrepreneur, she has been involved in the start-up and management of several small businesses and frequently assists a range of small entrepreneurs on a voluntary basis.

She is currently president of the UWI Alumni Association, a former member of the St Stephen's Church Council and the first female trustee of the Anglican Church in Barbados.

Senator McClean's special emphasis will be on management, administration and training.

Appointed

Mr Darcy Boyce will be appointed to the Senate and will serve as Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office with special responsibility for Finance and Energy. Darcy Boyce graduated from Harrison College in 1971, winning a Barbados Exhibition. He graduated
in 1974 from the Mona Campus University of the West Indies with a first class honours degree in economics. After gaining the degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA) in finance from the University of Toronto in 1979,
he qualified as a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) in 1984 and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados.

Mr Boyce was an economist with the Caribbean Development Bank, a director of Coopers and Lybrand Associates, executive director of the Agricultural Venture Trust, partner in charge of management consulting, KPMG, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados and chief executive officer of the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc. He has also served on the board of directors of several private
sector companies.

Between 1992 and 2000, Mr Boyce also served as the coordinator of the Barbados Private Sector Agency to provide business sector input into the tripartite governance arrangements in the country.

Mr Arni Walters will be appointed to the Senate and will serve as Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office with special responsibility for Employment, Labour Relations and the Social Partnership. He was educated at the Barbados Academy, Ruskin College (Oxford) and Brunel University (Uxbridge). He is the holder of a diploma in public and social administration and a master's degree in sociology and law.

Arni has been the human resource manager of the Barbados Agricultural Management Company Ltd since 1994. Prior to that he worked as the manager of industrial services – Barbados Employers' Confederation (BEC) – between 1984 and 1992; and has been a member of the Barbados Employers' Confederation Council since 1994.

He has served in many capacities in employment and labour relations including chairman of employment rights, safety and health, minimum wage and labour relations sub-committees; vice-president of the BEC since 2003; member and trustee of the Human Resource Management Association of Barbados since 1995; a representative on the sub-committee of the Social Partners and Full Social Partnership; member of the Drafting Sub-Committee for Protocol V.

Arni's academic career includes that of lecturer/tutor in sociology, social policy, law and governance at the University
of the West Indies; lecturer/tutor
in occupational safety and health management and employment law at UWI School of Continuing Studies; tutor in employment/labour law, Industrial relations and occupational safety and health management at BIMAP, since 1988. Arni participated in the Duke
of Edinburgh Commonwealth Study Conferences on managing change,
for emerging leaders in 1986 and
again in 2006.

Fellow Barbadians, there is no doubt whatsoever that Barbados has reached a level of political maturity to appreciate these changes. As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day and Errol Barrow Day, these changes are intended to take us beyond the dream.

I am delighted to reiterate that as long as I hold office in Barbados, my colleagues and I will consider ourselves accountable to the people of this nation. This is part of the good governance we have been preaching for many years and which we can now practise.

My friends, you have endorsed our policies and programmes, which we have laid out clearly in our manifesto. I thank you for giving the Democratic Labour Party your mandate. We are energised to proceed with haste to complete the economic, social and cultural revolution which we started in 1966.

We are about to release the creative energies of our people and to produce goods and services of the highest standards and in such volumes that Barbados will be placed firmly among the more developed countries of the world within the next ten years.

Nation-building

I urge you to join us in the task of nation-building. I invite all of you to strengthen the capacity of Barbados to make a significant contribution to the emerging Caribbean economic, social and cultural renaissance. This is the best chance we have ever had to assert our unique national and regional identity.

I want to end by thanking the magnificent and intelligent people of Barbados for knowing what is right for the development of this country.

I also thank all those who planned and supervised the general elections, all those who worked tirelessly on the platforms to share policies and perspectives and all those who worked behind the scenes.

I thank our allies in the Caribbean and further afield. I thank Barbadians of the Diaspora who have followed these elections with keen interest.

Above all I want to thank you all in advance for your ongoing support and I ask you for your prayers for our nation.

May God bless you all.

And, most of all, may God bless Barbados.