Politics
Barbados, Guyana face political turbulence in the near future
A great amount of political goodwill will be required for survival of the governments in Barbados and Guyana as they cope with different challenges.
For Barbados, the challenge comes ahead of new elections in a year’s time, while Guyana is agonizingly adjusting to running a minority administration with the real likelihood of calling a snap poll in 2012.
In Barbados, where the current Democratic Labour Party (DLP) administration is completing the fourth year of its first five-year term, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart is facing a virtual open rebellion of a majority of his 21 parliamentary colleagues, among them eight ministers in a 19-member Cabinet.
In a letter sent to the prime minister, which was leaked to the Barbados Sunday Sun newspaper of December 11, the dissidents are claiming dissatisfaction with the leadership of Stuart, who became head of government following the death last year of David Thompson who lost his battle with cancer.
The letter, which requested an urgent meeting with Stuart, pointed to strong fears of the DLP losing the next general election due by January 2013, owing to what the dissidents perceive as his “leadership weaknesses”, coupled with “a sense of drift and inertia arising therefrom…”
