Barbados PM Mia Mottley who broke with Queen wins landslide second term

• Mia Mottley, who shot to international fame during the Cop26 climate talks and oversaw Barbados’s break with the Queen in November 2021, has won a second term as the Caribbean nation’s prime minister 
• The 56-year-old’s Barbados Labour party (BLP) won all 30 seats, up from 29 in 2018 in an election marred by complaints that thousands of Covid-positive Bajans were denied a vote. 
• Huge crowds celebrated into the early hours of Thursday outside BLP’s headquarters in the capital, Bridgetown, after Barbados’s midnight curfew was lifted for the night. 
• In her victory speech, Mottley said the landslide victory would allow her government to “lead the country first to safety and then to prosperity” and to prepare Barbados for the challenges “of the next 10 to 15 years”. These include climate change and antimicrobial resistance, she said. 
• The Prime Minister has pledged to create thousands of jobs in construction, technology and renewable energy to help the palm-fringed island emerge from the economic slump caused by the pandemic.

 (Sources: The Guardian & NCBCM Research)