TWO OPPOSITON Members of Parliament on Sunday chorused a call for the Freundel Stuart administration to resign and call fresh elections, having lost the confidence of the people in the management of their affairs.
They were speaking at the first of three People’s Assemblies held at the Frederick Smith Secondary School, Trents, St James.
St Joseph representative Dale Marshall told the Government that when the people have given the marching orders, then it is time for the ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) to call an election.
He noted that Barbados in the not too distant past was faced with the same kind of peril and perdition confronting it now and the DLP then took the people through the hardship and should have pledged not to take them back through such a road. But, he said, the DLP failed, and this the second time around was more painful.
Marshall accused the DLP of winning elections in 2008 and 2013 through making grand promises, which it then failed to keep.
Barbados today, he felt, was truly at the crossroads and some people were saying the country could not abide another four years of DLP rule.
“There is nothing rosy on the horizon; there is nothing that the Prime Minister will say; there is nothing that [Minister of Finance] Chris Sinckler is saying to give anybody any confidence; there is nothing happening in Government and people have lost confidence,” he said.
“People know that when you have lost confidence in an individual, there is only one thing to do. There is no point keeping him . . . [otherwise] the organization will continue to fester and get gangrene and sooner or later somebody will lose a life.
“This administration . . . has not only lost the confidence of Barbadians, but they have lost the confidence of the international community; they have lost the confidence of anybody who is anybody. But when you lose the confidence of the Barbadian people, then it is time to go.
“We are not advocating any rioting; we are not advocating any unlawful assemblies. We are simply saying that the people in the DLP must have a conscience and know that when the people of Barbados have given them their marching orders; it has come time to call an election.
And St Thomas MP, Cynthia Forde also suggested to the Prime Minister that with people being asked to make sacrifices, he could set an example by emulating the leader of Bermuda and reduce the 17-member Cabinet by five or six ministers.
Forde accused the DLP of not listening to advice and repeatedly spurning offers of assistance from the Opposition. (AB)
