BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) – Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley on Saturday night named Febuary 11 as the date for a general election in her country, the second occasion that she has called a snap election within at least one year remaining on her five-year term in office.

Mottley led the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) to landslide 30-0 victories in both the 2018 and 2022 general elections, defeating the main Opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP). The DLP is led by King Counsel, Ralph Thorne, who took over the leadership of the party in February 2024, less than a week after he left the ruling BLP government.

The BLP recently nominated candidates to fly the party’s flag in the St Thomas and St Joseph constituencies, replacing longstanding Members of Parliament who are not contesting the next general election.

Attorney Michael Lashley, who joined the party last year after resigning from the DLP, has now completed the BLP’s slate of 30 candidates.

Speaking at a public meeting of her BLP at the Westbury Primary School on Saturday night, Mottley said that Nomination Day will be on January 27.

She told supporters that in a democracy “you must come back for a new mandate, and if you want to come back to us for a new mandate then you must.

“I ask you now to please listen to me carefully. I visited His Excellency, Lieutenant Colonel, the Most Honourable Jeffrey Bostic, the President of Barbados, just after four “o” clock this evening and my colleagues are looking at me with enthusiasm because they too do not know.

“’…I advised His Excellency that come Monday, the 19th of January, the Parliament of Barbados shall be dissolved and I indicated to His Excellency that the writs for elections will be issued having been written and approved by the Honourable Attorney General, who awaits now only the date,” Mottley told BLP supporters.

“ And in accordance with that, I now tell you, Honourable Dale Marshall to please have the writs prepared to deliver to His Excellency tomorrow, the , the lawful authority to which to dissolve Parliament by the 19th of January and that Nomination Day shall be Tuesday, 27th of January.

“And on that day when we are satisfied that candidates have been legitimately nominated and there are contests to be had that polling day shall be Wednesday, the 11th of February 2026,”Mottley said.

There had been widespread speculation that Mottley would have been calling a general election ahead of the constitutional deadline, as she seeks a third consecutive term in office.

Last December, even though the general elections are not constitutionally due until 2027, Mottley put supporters of the BLP on the alert for an early poll fuelling speculation about a general election a year ahead of schedule.

Addressing a cocktail reception hosted at her official residence, Mottley said then: “Whilst there is work to be done, there is work for the Barbados Labour Party and its soldiers to do, and we are all turning up for work in 2026. We are all turning up for work in 2026, because if something can be done, it is this Barbados Labour Party that will do it, always, always, always.

“I want you, therefore, to have a restful Christmas, a Merry Christmas, because when I start to call on you, I don’t want you to tell me that you are tired. And when I start to call on you, I don’t want you to tell me anything other than ‘Prime Minister, we are ready. We are red and ready. We are red, red, red and ready, ready, ready’,” she added.

Political analyst and pollster, Peter Wickham, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) last month that Mottley would go ahead with her plans to call an early general election in the country.

“The outcome, I don’t believe, will surprise anyone, quite frankly,” he said, adding “I don’t know that the outcome will surprise anyone.

“The conversation we are having these days is whether the opposition can actually gain a seat or two, but the likelihood that they would win, I think, is really quite low in the minds of people,” he said.