BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

Just nine months after it was voted out of office, the opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) says this country was worse off under the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) of Prime Minister David Thompson.

"We have handed over to those who govern now, an economy humming with progressive projects. Some of them have slowed down and it is not a year yet, and some of them have come to a full stop," BLP Chairman Dame Billie Miller said.

"We have handed over in January of this year, the lowest rate of unemployment in Barbados and it grieves me that as we speak, it is creeping upward again."

Dame Billie, who addressed Saturday's opening session of her party's 70th annual conference, said the BLP while in government had brought Barbados "from bad to good and from good to better".

"Now in this first decade of the 21st century, we have a challenge in the BLP to move from better to the best for our people," she told the party faithful.

Not a bad thing

"It is not a bad thing necessarily that we will be doing it when we are in opposition. The first priority must be within this party.

"We must retool, refuel, reform and we must reposition this great party, and I am pleased to say to you that that work has already started," Dame Billie added.

Two weeks ago, Opposition Leader and BLP Political Leader Mia Mottley told Barbadians to expect "radical" change in the party.

She said the new effort to "renew" and "build a new BLP" would see to the introduction of at least 14 new faces on the party's ticket going into the next election, which is constitutionally due here in 2013.