KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – there seems to be a trend where persons who are appointed prime minister in the Caribbean lose when they face the electorate, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said on Wednesday.
He was at the time responding to a question from a journalist.
Gonsalves, a political scientist, mentioned Arnhim Eustace in St. Vincent, Vaughn Lewis and Stephenson King in St. Lucia, and Portia Simpson Miller and Holness in Jamaica, all of whom have led their parties to electoral defeat after being appointed prime minister.
“The politics is often not simple arithmetic, it is algebra. So, not every case you would necessarily see it happening but there seems to be some kind of trend there,” Gonsalves said.
“And, I will tell you this: when you get it like that and people reject you, I don’t know cases where anybody got it back,” he further stated, adding that Holness “is probably young enough” to have another chance at becoming prime minister.
“It is not so easy. People form their impressions of you; whether you are made of prime ministerial timber or not. It doesn’t matter what the propaganda says. It doesn’t matter what those in the salons who support you want to say. That’s how the cookie crumbles,” Gonsalves said.