Barbados PM Mia Mottley re-elected in landslide victory
After restoring the island's economic stability in her first term, Mia Mottley has won a second term in office by a large margin.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley, the 56-year-old Barbados Labour Party (BLP), has won by a large margin the 2nd term in office.
In her victory speech, Mottley said the overwhelming victory would allow her government to “lead the country first to safety and then to prosperity” and to get the island ready for the challenges “of the next 10 to 15 years,” which include antimicrobial resistance and climate change, she said.
One of her projects will also be dealing with the island's aging population via immigration. She will be working on attracting more “digital nomads” to Barbados and luring back the Barbadian diaspora.
Mottley has vowed to create thousands of jobs in technology, construction, and renewable energy to help the island rise from the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.
Mia Mottley's history in her political career
In 2018, during Mottley's first term, she restructured the national debt and boosted international reserves by six times, which restored trust in the island's currency exchange rate with the US dollar.
PM Mia Mottley made her mark on the Cop26 climate talks when she criticized world leaders for not acting on climate change, asking them to "try harder" in order to avoid a catastrophe.
Mottley’s popularity started at home when she won over 70% of the popular vote and her BLP took all 30 seats in parliament.
When Barbados officially became an independent republic, almost 400 years after its colonization and 55 years after its independence, Mottley quoted Jamaican pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey’s call to “emancipate ourselves from mental slavery.”