Voters in Barbados will today (January 19) decide whether Mia Mottley deserves a second term as head of government, less than four years after the veteran politician became prime minister of the island nation for the first time.

Today’s general election will go forward after High Court Judge, Madame Justice Cicely Chase last night ruled that the Court had no jurisdiction to hear an injunction to stop the poll on the grounds that more than 5,000 coronavirus (COVID-19) patients are being denied their constitutional right to vote.

The injunction had been filed by Philip Nathanial Catlyn, a member of the Barbados Sovereignty Party (BSB), a minor opposition party.

Catlyn’s injunction had claimed that the exclusion of the COVID-19 positive citizens from the election would breach Section 6 of the Representation of the People Act, which enshrines the right of eligible residents and citizens to vote.

Justice Chase, however, said the injunction ought to have been brought before an election court and that the action was incorrectly filed.

A total of 108 candidates representing seven political parties and nine independents are down to contest the poll.

The general election is, however, expected to be a battle between Mottley’s ruling Barbados Labour Party, which in 2018 swept all 30 seats in Parliament, and Verla De Peiza’s Democratic Labour Party.

Mottley has, throughout her first term as prime minister, and in particular since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, set herself apart from other Caribbean leaders on the world stage.

But it was during the COP26 climate talks last November that Barbados’ first female prime minister truly became an international darling after what many described as Mottley’s rip-roaring speech telling the leaders of the world’s largest economies to “try harder” to avert catastrophic climate change.

Today, however, it will neither be the international leaders who clamoured to be photographed beside her, nor the media outlets desperate to interview her, who will decide whether she remains in her seat of power.