THE ULP TEAM IS OF A VERY HIGH QUALITY
As the date for the 2025 general elections draws nearer, the people of SVG are in the process of assessing the state of the two major political parties (the governing Unity Labour Party and the opposition New Democratic Party), their records, their policies and plans, their candidates, and their leaderships. Today, we focus on the candidates even as we recognise that a consideration of them is entwined with considerations relating to the parties, and their leaderships.
Although all the prospective candidates for the ULP are yet to go through all the formal, internal party processes, it can be stated with near-mathematical certainty that the following constitute the very high-quality ULP team: Dr. Grace Walters (North Windward); Dr. Ralph E. Gonsalves (North Central Windward); Saboto Caesar (South Central Windward); Darron John (South Windward); Camillo Gonsalves (East St. George); Curtis King (West St. George); Jimmy Prince (Marriaqua); Luke Browne (East Kingstown); Marvin Fraser (Central Kingstown); Keisal Peters (West Kingstown); Grenville Williams (South Leeward); Dr. Orando Brewster (Central Leeward); Carlos James (North Leeward); Carlos Williams (North Grenadines); Chevonne Stewart (Southern Grenadines)
Of this 15-member very high-quality slate, ten of them have had considerable experience as members of Cabinet (Comrades Ralph, Saboto, Camillo, Curtis, Jimmy, Luke, Keisal, Grenville, Orando, and Carlos James). The NDP does not have one single candidate with Cabinet experience.
Further, in relation to the other five members of the ULP team, their relevant experiences, respectively, are as follows: Grace has been a practicing nurse of high quality for many years, and is now the Hospital Administrator, the chief executive officer of the main hospital; Darron is a lecturer at the Community College in information technology; Marvin has been a sports administrator (former President of the Football Federation), and a professional in the field of information technology; Carlos Williams is the Deputy Director of Grenadines Affairs, and a public sector employee; and Chevonne is a trained professional who heads the radiological services in SVG.
All fifteen of the ULP team are highly educated and trained persons. All of them have a strong record of service to communities across SVG. All are steeped in the uplifting tried and tested values of our Caribbean civilisation, and its extraordinary Vincentian component. Each of them has areas of professional expertise in accord with their own training and experience: Economics, Political Economy, Law, Politics, International Relations, Public Administration, Information Technology, Mathematics and Statistics, Nursing, Radiology, and Business. Each of our candidates possesses an enduring love for, and commitment to, the people as a whole, and individually. This is vital; indeed, the most important quality of all.
UNITY AND SOLIDARITY
The ULP team are united in their shared philosophy of social democracy, nationalism, regionalism, anti-imperialism, and internationalist solidarity; the ten core principles, aims, and objectives of the ULP; the uplifting tried and tested values of our Caribbean civilisation and its Vincentian component; and the policies and programmes of the ULP as enunciated in its successive election manifestos and policy documents.
The ULP team are firmly conjoined in the four unities of the Party: Unity of Vision and Philosophy; Unity of Policies and Programmes; Unity of Party Organisation; and Unity of Leadership.
The ULP’s internal unity and solidarity are largely responsible for the fact that after a near-25 years in office, no minister of the ULP government has ever resigned his/her office, and no member of the Cabinet has been removed from his/her office; each serves his or her time then goes voluntarily, and thus makes way for someone else. All this has accorded to SVG an unprecedented and remarkable political stability for near-25 years. This political stability has facilitated good governance and economic prosperity. Without political stability in governance, the country would be in shambles and life would be nasty and brutish.
LEADERSHIP
Leadership of any team is vital. In politics and government, there is a very high premium on it. In small-island developing countries with challenges galore, inclusive of debilitating inheritances from the colonial period and thereafter, without very high-quality leadership hardly any meaningful development occurs.
To lead in SVG demands energy and will, vision and skill plus the X-factor, that especial quality of being able to draw out of the people whom you are leading, their goodness, nobility, and “hidden” resources and ofttimes to do so when they themselves do not as yet know that they possess such goodness, nobility, and “hidden” resources. Comrade Ralph has shown, ongoing, that he is blessed with the requisite energy and will, vision and skill, plus their especial X-factor. The NDP possesses no such leader with these skills and capabilities.
Certainly, you cannot lead in any meaningly way or at all if you are lazy, weak, indecisive, and possessed of no creativity. Everyone in the NDP knows that their political leader, Lorraine Friday, is a complete waste of time as a leader; he is a fake, completely useless. James Mitchell knew that; so too Leacock and Cummings know that. But, they mamaguy him because they have no acceptable alternative in that sad and sorry political party.
THE NDP: A PICK-UP SIDE OF POOR QUALITY
The NDP is disunited, disorganised, and in the pay of those disreputable foreigners who want to impose a passport-selling scheme on our country, and to break relations with Taiwan in favour of mainland China. They have no progressive plans for SVG now and the future. They are in shambles.
The NDP candidates have no genuine love for the people of SVG neither in the general nor in the particular; and the people know it. That is a serious problem that the NDP and its mis-leaders cannot overcome any time before the next general elections. Overwhelmingly, the NDP parliamentarians are full of bile, anger, and bitterness. The people sense that the NDP have no love, only revenge, in their hearts and minds. They are Ralph-haters to the core; this hate blinds them from seeing the good in Ralph or the good that he is doing for SVG.
Further, almost of them, including their new candidates, are thirsty and hungry for power; they crave status; they are keen on “getting a position” in government; it is not about service to the people. Friday, the Canadian citizen by choice, looks down upon SVG by his choice and actions. Some of the NDP frontline men are so infantile and silly; they are boys in men’s clothing. They have no sound judgment; they are immature and reckless in their pronouncements. The evidence abounds. And none of these NDP men and women has any experience in government. It is pathetic. For all these reasons, and more, they will lose; the people will reject them again. They are realizing this and they are getting desperate. Desperate men and women will do desperate things. Beware SVG!
