Mannerisms

David Thompson was elected last week as the Prime Minister of Barbados under his party’s banner of: ‘We want change’.

Thompson’s party is 'The ‘Dems’, the local monniker for the Democratic Labour Party (another election slogan: 'I'm wid Dem') which won 20 seats out of a total of 30 in the world’s third oldest parliament, to give the Dems victory over the Barbados Labour Party (known as ‘The Bs’) for the first time in 14 years.

“Change what? They don’t say what they’re going to change,” said a scornful Evelyn, a staunch BLP supporter, who cleaned the Barbados apartment we were staying in last week.

Her answer came from the taxi driver, Matthew, who picked us up at the airport. “The BLP is corrupt", he said, "they’ve been in power too long”. It’s the oldest truth in the political game.

The Barbadians run a vocal but decent election. Everyone we met was interested in the process. The beaten Prime Minister, Owen Arthur, gracefully accepted the change in his fortunes.

So different from those miserable politicians in Africa who cling to power by the use of every shoddy, nasty practice they can muster.

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