KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, Mar 15, IWN – The general secretary of the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP) has noted that popular support for the party has consistently dwindled since 1998.
The ULP won the popular vote in 1998, when it lost the election by one seat, and maintained the popular vote in 2001, when it first came to office, and when it was re-elected in 2005, and 2010.
But, Sen. Julian Francis noted on his weekly radio programme that the party, which won the 2010 election by a one-seat majority, got just 1,500 more popular votes than the main opposition New Democratic Party.
He called on ULP area representatives and caretakers to pay closer attention to their constituents.
“Major policies and projects make the government look good. The popular vote comes from those personal contacts, what you do for people when they have their individual crises and you are able to come in an allay some of them, alleviate some of them, reduce some of the pressures.
“I am urging you, those of us in the leadership of the party, those of us in the executive of the various constituencies, we have a lot of work to do. We have started doing it. I am not going to say on radio what we are doing. But we’ve started doing it,” Francis said on Tuesday.
“Those of us who are involved know and I am going to be very mum as to what we are doing. But what I am going to be very loud on is to do it and get it done. We will talk more off-air on this, than we do on-air,” he further said.