Patsie Nurse will be carrying the banner for the coalition Alliance Party for Progress (APP) in St Michael West in the January 19 General Election and not the incumbent Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley who will be running in St Michael Central.
The political hopeful will be going up against two first time candidates in a bid to gain the urban riding. The Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) candidate is businessman Chris Gibbs and Ricky Laker Williams, a well-known sportsman and homeboy, is the Democratic Labour Party’s contender.
Sources within the constituency said in recent days Nurse has been in various communities canvassing and seeking to get the nod from residents ahead of today’s Nomination Day and trying to secure people for the nomination process.
She contested the 2018 general elections for the United Progressive Party in St Michael West gaining a mere 45 votes. She went up against Atherley, who carried the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) flag and won. The Democratic Labour Party’s Michael Carrington, Solutions Barbados’ Lana Toussaint, and Neil Holder of the Barbados Integrity Movement were the other candidates.
Nurse made her political debut in 2003 on a Democratic Labour Party ticket. She ran in St Thomas against incumbent, the BLP’s Cynthia Forde who had won the seat in the 2001 by-election.
She garnered 1 103 votes to Forde’s 3 523 votes then but did not contest the 2008 or 2013 general elections.
Sources told Nation News that speculation was rife among constituents regarding whether Bishop Joseph Atherley would be running in St Michael West after he was not seen out and about canvassing. He will be running against the BLP’s Arthur Holder, the incumbent and the DLP’s Courie Cox, a first timer.
The APP has not named its slate of candidates, and it is expected that will take place today after they are nominated and officially in the election race.
On Thursday, Atherley, who heads the People’s Party for Democracy and Development and Lynette Eastmond who leads the United Progressive Party, announced a coalition (APP) of their parties to contest this general election being held a year before it was constitutionally due in 2023.
On Friday, after he, Eastmond and other members paid their mandatory $250 deposits to the Treasury, Atherley said: “We expect to have 26 but we want to wait until they are nominated until we reveal who they are. You have to understand that sometimes people pull out at the last minute and sometimes people come forward at the last minute.
“Those who are critical of parties that don’t have a full slate of candidates need only remember that the first time that Mr Barrow won, he did so without a full slate of candidates”. (GBM)