Verla De Peiza elected as the new leader of Barbados’ Main Opposition Party

Verla De Peiza has been elected leader of the opposition Democratic Labor Party (DLP) succeeding former prime minister Freundel Stuart – who stepped down his and the DLP’s election defeat.

De Peiza was elected unopposed as DLP president on Sunday – on the final day of the party’s 2-day 63rd annual general conference.

In her first speech to party delegates, De Peiza declared that her mission is to rebuild the fractured 63-year-old party and ready it for the next general election.

She is a trained attorney and a former Government senator and the twice defeated candidate for Christ Church West, declared she was up to the task of rebuilding the party from scratch following the biggest electoral defeat in Barbadian political history, in which the incumbent failed to capture a single seat in the 30-seat lower house.

“If nothing else gives us the impetus to move forward it must be the fear of failing. This party is bigger than us. This party has a responsibility to this country and we are equal to that task,” she said.

“There is without doubt a mammoth task ahead of us, we have to repair breaches internally and externally and because I have no interest in wallowing in the wilderness for longer than is absolutely necessary, we must step up and act and address these matters frontally without fear, without favor.”

De Peiza will be supported in the party leadership by former Parliamentary Secretary in the previous administration, Irene Sandiford-Garner who was elected First Vice President; Second Vice President Nicholas Alleyne; Third Vice President George Connolly; and Fourth Vice President Andre Worrell.