A political dispute has erupted in Antigua and Barbuda ahead of a critical by-election, with allegations of staged misinformation campaigns targeting basic utility services. Randy Baltimore, the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) candidate for the St. Philip’s North constituency, has publicly accused an activist from the opposing United Progressive Party (UPP) of fabricating a water outage crisis.
According to Baltimore, the individual intentionally shut off a local water meter to produce a deceptive video purporting to show a complete lack of running water in the community. This act, Baltimore asserts, was a deliberate attempt to mislead residents and discredit the incumbent administration’s public works record. The ABLP candidate countered the initial footage by disseminating a subsequent video from a resident that allegedly showed water flowing normally from the same location just moments after the first recording was made.
In a strongly worded statement, Baltimore condemned the action as emblematic of the UPP’s alleged strategy of spreading ‘misinformation and disinformation.’ He directly challenged his by-election rival, UPP candidate Alex Browne, along with the party’s leadership, to issue an immediate public condemnation of the tactic, labeling it as ‘misleading and harmful.’
Baltimore emphasized that while electoral competition is expected, such desperate measures ultimately erode public trust and damage the integrity of the democratic process that all parties are obligated to uphold. As of the latest reports, neither the accused activist, identified as Whenner, nor the UPP leadership has issued an official response to these allegations. The by-election, now under a cloud of controversy, is scheduled to proceed on March 16th.