By Aida Pelaez-Fernandez and Sarah Morland
Feb 12 (Reuters) - Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley won a historic third election victory, with her Barbados Labour Party sweeping all seats of the island nation's House of Assembly, as counting ended early on Thursday.
Mottley's BLP won all 30 seats for the third time, unseating opposition leader Ralph Thorne, who ran for the BLP in the last campaign, in an election that pitted her more global-facing approach against the opposition's focus on Barbadians' domestic needs.
"Our mission first and foremost is to stop poor people from being poor and to remove injustice wherever it exists to create opportunities for people," Mottley, 60, said in a victory speech. She is the second leader to serve more than two consecutive terms.
Surrounded by supporters dressed in red, she pledged to strengthen efforts on issues such as infrastructure, healthcare and road safety.
"We did not come simply to hold office. We have come to make Barbados better and to make your lives better," she said. Friday will be a public holiday in Barbados, she added.
At her swearing-in ceremony, Mottley told reporters the international landscape had changed substantially since her first election win in 2018, and that the small island would look to unity and innovation to move forward.
Mottley has been a leading voice on reforming debt for climate-vulnerable nations, including through debt-for-climate swaps.
Barbados, which defaulted on bonds in 2018, last year brought its debt-to-GDP ratio to just under 100% for the first time in over a decade.
'CLEAR ELECTORAL VICTORY'
"The people have spoken, and we respect their voices," the opposition Democratic Labour Party said.
Thorne did not cast a ballot because he was not registered in the district where he was living and competing, according to state TV network CBC. He was elected there in 2022 as a member of the BLP but moved to the DLP in 2024.
The head of the Caribbean Community's electoral observation mission said before the election it had received concerns about inaccuracies on the voting register.
Some opposition candidates said this would justify a delay in the vote, but the electoral commission said citizens had time to address inaccuracies and the process was legitimate.
The BLP was expected to win comfortably, with a mid-January poll commissioned by Barbados' The Nation Publishing and Starcom Network showing more support for the ruling party compared to the last election, though many of those surveyed were undecided or did not plan to vote.
An official turnout figure was not available by late afternoon. In the prior 2022 general election, turnout landed below 50%, according to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems.
Barbados is the Caribbean's easternmost country, home to around 283,000 people and a little over half the geographical size of Singapore.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Mottley on her "clear electoral victory," adding that Washington was looking to increase collaboration on crime and drug trafficking in the region.
The U.S. has expanded its military presence in the Caribbean and has agreements with both the Dominican Republic and nearby Trinidad and Tobago to dock warships in their territories.
It has long imposed an economic embargo on Cuba and this year threatened sanctions on countries that supply it with oil. On January 3, the U.S. captured Venezuela's president in a surprise overnight attack on its capital.
(Reporting by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez in Barcelona, Sarah Morland in Mexico City, Sarah Peter in Castries and Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Kate Mayberry, Rod Nickel and Matthew Lewis)
