BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos–Less than a week af­ter he led the Bar­ba­dos Labour Par­ty (BLP) in­to its sec­ond con­sec­u­tive de­feat, Owen Arthur has been re­placed as leader of the par­ty.Mia Mot­t­ley, a for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al, who in 2010 lost the lead­er­ship of the BLP, was named as the new leader by BLP ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Gline Clarke flanked by 13 par­lia­men­tary mem­bers.The BLP lost the 2013 gen­er­al elec­tion by a 16-14 mar­gin.

"As sec­re­tary of the par­lia­men­tary group, I just want to an­nounce that Mia Mot­t­ley was elect­ed as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion," Clarke said yes­ter­day.Arthur, 63, did not at­tend the meet­ing but re­porters were told his ab­sence was to al­low the Op­po­si­tion leg­is­la­tors a free hand to elect a new leader.Clarke added: "The par­ty is unit­ed. Mr Arthur felt he would give the mem­bers of the par­lia­men­tary group­ing the free­dom to choose the fu­ture of the Bar­ba­dos Labour Par­ty and we thank him and re­spect him for that.

"Mr Arthur has in­di­cat­ed he would be a full mem­ber of the House of As­sem­bly and we look for­ward to that." In Oc­to­ber 2010, af­ter she lost the lead­er­ship to Arthur, Mot­t­ley said she would re­main com­mit­ted to the BLP but ac­cused it of en­gag­ing in a kan­ga­roo court to en­sure her re­moval from the post she held since 2008.

Source­Caribbean360