CASTRIES, St. Lucia — The main opposition United Workers Party (UWP) led by Allen Chastanet won Monday’s general election denying Prime Minister Kenny Anthony and his St. Lucia Labour Party (SLP) a second consecutive five-year term in office.
Preliminary results show that the UWP won 11 of the 17 seats at stake, reversing the results of the 2011 general election, when the SLP won by the same margin.
Chastanet secured 2,495 votes to his opponent’s 1,446 to become the next Member of Parliament for Micoud South.
In a statement issued Monday night, Anthony congratulated Chastanet and the UWP on their “convincing vitory”.
“On behalf of the Saint Lucia Labour Party and also on my personal behalf, I congratulate Mr. Allen Chastanet, Leader of the United Workers Party on his victory at the polls today, June 6, 2016,” said Anthony, who resurged to power in 2011 after five years in opposition.
“On all accounts, this was a convincing victory. It is clear there was a major national swing against the Saint Lucia Labour Party.
“I wish the people of Saint Lucia the very best as we embark on this new journey.
As to my future, I do not intend to serve as the Leader of the Opposition and indeed, Political Leader of the Saint Lucia Labour Party. I will, however, continue to serve my constituents of Vieux-Fort South and support my other Parliamentary colleagues in their various constituencies as they seek to protect the interests of their constituents,” he said.
“I am deeply grateful for the honour of serving the people of Saint Lucia as Prime Minister for nearly three terms.
My special thanks to the people of Vieux-Fort South for electing me as their Parliamentary Representative for the fifth time,” Anthony said in the statement.
Former prime minister, Stephenson King also won his Castries North seat by a massive margin, obtaining 3,774 votes to the 1,482 of the SLP’s John Charlery.
(With reporting from CMC & St. Lucia News Online)
Peter Wickham of CADRES recently concluded that this election “is too close to call,” once more showing that election polling is more art than science.
Congratulation to the people of St. Lucia! Vincentians, that’s how you do it! If your government is not performing vote them out of office. We should not have allegiance to a political party but instead a commitment to our country. I strongly agreed with Ralph when he said that no government should be given more than 2 terms, for after the second term they tend to lose focus and run out of ideas. I really believe that we are laughing stock of the Caribbean in SVG, but it’s not too late to change that…raise up my people and demand change and better governance of our country and stop the exploration of resources and people. We have been too long divided along party lines. Time for the country be one again.
Our party system is too entrenched to be changed any time soon. During the December 2015 campaign, a woman told me that she was “a born NDP,” implying that political allegiance is now considered by many a religion or a tribe, an affiliation that is supposed to be immutable.
Not because a person believed they have been born to party that does not mean that if the party is doing wrong that they still stick with them. If your family member is doing wrong, what do you do, still condone their wrong doing when you know it’s wrong?
Congrats to the people of St. Lucia! Seems like most people in the different Caribbean Islands has shown, when a Political Party is not doing what they were voted in to do , then it time to fire them. After all the people is who has the power and they are the CEO and they can hire and fire. Vincentians are a special breed of people, their street are paved with gold, the economy is the best in the world, no unemployment( even the thieves have great jobs)crime is unheard of, Vincentians living abroad rushing to return to their Garden of Eden,and most of all the people are so loved by their PM, there is no need to change.
Boy oh boy Trinidad, Jamaica and St Lucia all changed their government after one term. Guyana, St Kitts and Antigua all changed their government too. So what it is with the Vincentian people far as I know those Islands are way ahead of SVG?