Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves cannot go to Central Kingstown and do as he pleases and the same should obtain in New York.
So said Member of Parliament for Central Kingstown, St. Clair Leacock, who told a town hall meeting of his New Democratic Party in Brooklyn last weekend, that he is sometimes upset to hear people say that the Unity Labour Party and Gonsalves has a stranglehold on Vincentians in New York.
“This is an international place. No self-respecting persons should allow that to be said,” said Leacock, who is also a vice-president of the main opposition New Democratic Party.
“He can’t come in into Central Kingstown and … how can he do it in Brooklyn?” Leacock said as a voice from the crowd shouted, “We send him to the basement, we send him to the basement.”
The audience member was speaking in apparent reference to the location of a house meeting, rather than his regular town hall meeting, that Gonsalves had with Vincentians in Brooklyn during his annual visit to attend the United Nations General Debate in September.
Leacock said he was at a funeral at the Methodist Church in the heat of the 2015 election and someone told him that Gonsalves was in Redemption Sharpes, a Central Kingstown community, and had to leave.
“I go and I park and I walk him out. And if he do it again I will do it again because I cannot go to South Rivers and Colonarie and tell him how to run business,” Leacock said, referring to two communities in North Central Windward, which Gonsalves represents in Parliament.
Leacock went on to address the audience on the Director of Audit reports, a topic on which he had addressed the town hall meeting before.
He said he was doing so because things have gotten worse.
Lots have changed since I last lived at home Ill be the first to admit that, however cannot support the idea than Ralph cannot and should not go to a village in your constituency. We have to be bigger than that and cannot or should not get cought up in the moment.
Thats the mentality that started ‘garrisons’ in Jamaica. Is that the direction in which we want to go. Leacock you should be ashamed of that sort of comments.
Ralph Gonsalves, whether one may like him or not, is the Prime Minister of all of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and not just for his ULP supporters in South Rivers and Colonarie. For even in their respective strongholds, neither party enjoy a 100% support, so both parties can claim support within each other’s constituencies. More importantly, Mr. Leacock don’t own Central Kingstown and Redemption Sharpes, in the same way that Ralph Gonsalves don’t own South Rivers, Colonarie and other ULP strongholds. So this notion that Gonsalves shouldn’t be able to go into communities where the opposition party has a stronghold is quite narrow and ridiculous. For sure one can legitimately challenge Gonsalves’ leadership and his overall stewardship of the ULP government, but to say he should not be able to go here or there in a country where he is the head of the ruling government is simply asinine.
This is the type of attitude and language that will continue to divide us as a nation. Ralph Gonsalves is the Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Though we may disagree with some of his policy measures, he is still the elected leader of the country. I am ashamed that these words have to come from someone whom I had great respect and admiration for as a student at BGS and UWI. It is also sad that this party, which my parents supported so strongly has to diminished to this level of kindergarten politics. To be educated does not correlate with having wisdom and intelligence.