‘Luke ‘cyah move a dead dog, he go move gov’t?’ — Leacock

Minister of Health Luke Browne has been presented as unable to effect the removal a dead dog from the roadside in his community.

“He cyah move a dead dog, he go move government?” opposition politician St. Clair Leacock, a two-term Central Kingstown MP said at an NDP campaign event in Sion Hill on Friday.

Browne is making his third attempt to be elected Member of Parliament for East Kingstown, in which Sion Hill is located.

He was appointed a senator in August 2013 and was made Minister of Health after the 2015 vote.

“In 2015, Luke started his term with a health clinic right up there. He is the health minister you know; 2015, with a woodlice-ridden health centre up there in Sion Hill. But 2020, he reach down there. If he can’t manage up there, he go succeed down there?” Leacock said, referring to an area in which the clinic was relocated.

Leacock, who was speaking somewhat in the Vincentian vernacular, said that he usually goes walking on mornings.

“Three Mondays ago, I meet a dead dog down there, I coming up the road. Ah cross the road because ah can’t deal with the dog and the scent. Ah week after, ah ain’t see no dog. When a nearly reach up, the carcass still dey dey — one week gone. He cyah move a dead dog, he go move government?”

Leacock has repeated the fact that road kill being left to rot at the side of the road, even in urban St. Vincent is the analogy of for government dysfunction in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Leacock also turned his rhetoric on Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, although he said he was not dealing with the prime minister at that campaign rally.

“Ah ain’t dealing with Ralph tonight but Ralph was on a truck two weeks ago, they get a forklift to carry him up — lift St. Vincent higher,” he said, mocking quoting the campaign slogan of Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party.

“Lift Ralph higher, a forklift,” he said.

Leacock also spoke in apparent response to Browne, who said at a recent campaign event that Dwight Fitzgerald Bramble, the NDP’s candidate for East Kingstown had the record of 11goals being scored against him when he was on national soccer team.

“I told Fitz he playing the fool. When Luke come and talk about Fitz Bramble, he outta order. Outta place.”

Leacock said he had the privilege of being president of the SVG Football Federation on two occasions, during which the nation placed first and second place in the region.

 “… and I had the distinct pleasure of having Fitz in the national football team, just ask Renson Haynes,” he said, referring to another former national football who also spoke at the NDP’s rally on Friday.

“But we take a lot of things for granted with those gravediggers who want to come in from the top. Learn to build St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” Leacock said.

“When people like Fitz Bramble and Renson and [Elliot] ‘Mory’ Millington and others … and in this great village, but I talk about Fitz tonight, walk into a stadium, 11 of them and they look up and they see 100,000 Brazilians or Mexicans or whoever they are coming against; they’re a small island state and they have to, 11 of them, stand up and represent this country, you think it easy?

“You think it easy for 11 of them to take on 100,000? But they did it and they did it with pride and distinction. They are the flag bearers. St. Vincent and Luke the fluke stand today on the shoulder of Fitz Bramble and company.”

Leacock said that, in the Parliament, he asked no question of Browne because he is an “upstart”.

“Even with the retirement … of Mr. Eustace, he still feel that Mr. Eustace and he is sex and size. He was hoping that Mr. Eustace wudda stay on that he wudda geh a last chance. ‘Ah wudda be able to beat um so that me wudda be somebody’,” Leacock said mockingly as he imitated Browne.

The opposition politician was referring to the last meeting of the last Parliament, when opposition lawmakers paid tribute to Eustace, who is retiring from politics after 22 years as MP as East Kingstown.

In his tribute, Browne quoted the result of his two outings against Eustace, noting that in 2015, he lost by only 129 votes.

Browne expressed confidence that he would win the seat in the Nov. 5 polls.

Leacock said: “Boy, know yo’ damn place. Who the hell is you? Who the hell is you?

“Lemme tell you something. You see this election, I intent to fold them up, roll them up and that is the end. I have a speech for Ralph you know. I have a speech for him. Not tonight. Most likely next week and you will hear the A to Z of politics in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”

Leacock said the NDP is “a competent team of multi-skilled, tried and tested professionals that can take this country forward.

“We have been in the wilderness years for over 20 years, full of integrity of principle and we complement each other, whether it is economics, management, social studies, public administration, accounting, finance, whatever it is, we are a team.

“And this New Democratic Party is no fly-by-night party. We are an institution built on the shoulders of very many who have built us for over 40 years and we have the capacity, the will and the determination to carry this country forward.”

The NDP is hoping for a return to office almost two decades after it was voted out in March 2001.