Barbados prime minister and global climate action champion, Mia Amor Mottley, is on course for a third consecutive term in office, forecasts suggest, as voters head to the polls on Wednesday.
Mottley is the country’s first female leader since its independence in 1966, and her strong international advocacy for climate action and support for small and vulnerable nations have made her an influential and popular global and regional leader, experts say.
In a recent nationwide poll, nearly 80% of the decided voters interviewed said they would vote for Mottley’s ruling Barbados Labour party (BLP).
The survey, commissioned by local outlets the Nation and Starcom, also gauged support for party leaders and found that 61.2% of respondents favoured Mottley, compared with only 18% for the leader of the opposition Democratic Labour party (DLP), Ralph Thorne.
Only about 10% said they would consider voting outside the two main parties.
The poll forecasts a consolidation of support for BLP, which under Mottley’s leadership celebrated landslide victories in 2018 and 2022.
But it also shows voter apathy, with nearly half the electorate interviewed saying they were undecided or will not be voting.
A high cost of living and crime were identified as some of the most pressing concerns for voters, with the DLP accusing the government of broken promises, and pledging to prioritise crime reduction, reduce taxes and improve affordability.
The BLP has defended its record, arguing that it has kept its pledges to voters, “despite facing international crises, global uncertainty and volatility” brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, volcanic eruptions and tropical storms.
According to the World Bank, Barbados’s economy has continued to show resilience through 2024 and into 2025, with real GDP growth at 4.0% in 2024, driven by “robust activity in tourism, construction, and business services”.
On the ground in Barbados, retired manager Orville Browne agreed. “When things are rough internationally, you need somebody who could stand up and speak for the country. I trust that more than promises. So yes, I am supporting the government again, but I am expecting them to deal better with prices and crime this time,” he said.
But construction worker Anthony Sobers said it was time for a change. “This government get too comfortable. Everything centralised, everything tight, and ordinary people feeling it. Prices high, crime high, and when you complain, it feel like you are talking to yourself. I am ready for a change. I know the DLP got to rebuild, but somebody got to start holding this government properly to account,” he said.
Caribbean political analyst Peter Wickham said the vote would come down to the “viability of the DLP and confidence in prime minister Mottley”.
“We’ve seen elections across the region where the issues were the same, cost of living [and] crime, and governments have won and governments have lost on different occasions,” he said. “So it’s an issue of concern, but it’s not the real deciding factor. The real deciding factor is, ‘is the opposition viable?’, and ‘do we like the government, even though we may have issues with them?’.”
He added: “I don’t believe anyone expects that [Mottley] will lose. I think the conversations that we’ve been having are about the degree of victory – whether she will win all the seats again or whether she will win with a reduced majority. But I don’t know that there are many serious commentators that actually believe there’s a possibility of her losing.”
University of the West Indies expert George Belle agreed it is unlikely the opposition party will achieve “the degree of swing required to win the elections”.
“The Barbados Labour party is coming out of two historic victories where they won all the seats in the general elections. That meant that there were some constituencies in which there was a tremendous swing in favour of the Barbados Labour party. It will take a tremendous swing to overturn the majority that the Barbados Labour party has,” he said.
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