BRIDGETOWN (Reuters) - Barbadians voted for change in a general election on Tuesday, denying the Barbados Labour Party an unprecedented fourth term and giving the Democratic Labour Party the nod to form the next government.

Outgoing Prime Minister Owen Arthur conceded defeat shortly after midnight, after official but partial results showed the DLP led by lawyer David Thompson taking a strong lead in the vote in the former British colony.

The results early on Wednesday had the DLP winning 20 of the Caribbean island's 30 constituencies, with eight going to the former ruling party and three others still in dispute, election officials said.

"The desire for change was powerful," said Arthur, speaking from his constituency. "I gave my very best in this campaign (and) don't know that I could have done anything differently."

It was not immediately clear if Arthur would now serve as leader of the opposition but Thompson, a former junior finance minister, spoke later in a televised address from his campaign headquarters.

"Leadership is really about building a team, it's not about me personally," Thompson said.

He vowed to "focus on issues that matter most to the people" after being sworn in as the new Barbadian prime minister later this month.

The incumbent party had largely campaigned on its record.

An island of 280,000 that won independence in 1966, Barbados has overcome the decline of its once powerful sugar industry and grown relatively wealthy through high-end tourism, light industry and offshore financial services.

The DLP portrayed Arthur as an autocrat and said re-electing him would effectively usher in a one-party state.

Arthur had accused the DLP of receiving funds from Taiwan in exchange for secretly promising to switch Barbados' diplomatic allegiance away from China. The DLP denied this and a Taiwanese representative in St. Kitts & Nevis called it "ridiculous."

Discontent about the status quo has swept several incumbent parties from power across the Caribbean in the past couple of years and that seemed to be a factor behind Arthur's defeat.

Many Barbadians had grumbled in the run-up to the election about the high cost of living.

Other top issues, according to Barbadians, were health care and transportation and the island's increasingly congested and pot-holed highways.