ULP to field new candidates in 4 constituencies

The ruling Unity Labour Party says it will field new candidates in at least four of the 15 constituencies in the next general elections, widely expected within the next year, ahead of the February 2026 constitutional deadline.

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, who is the political leader of the ULP, told the party’s 26th annual convention on Sunday that two MPs have indicated their intention to bow out of politics, while a candidate, who has lost five times, also wants to quit.

He told the event at the Campden Park Secondary School that North Windward MP and Deputy Prime Minister, Montgomery Daniel, who is deputy leader of the ULP, and South Windward MP Frederick Stephenson are retiring from politics.

Edwin Snagg, the ULP’s chairman, who has failed since 2001 to win the Southern Grenadines, does not want to make another attempt.

The party will likely field Senator Keisal Peters in West Kingstown, which the main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) has held since 2010.

“We have to have candidates selection properly,” Gonsalves told the convention. “There are some persons who run last time may not run next time. Gommery, for instance, has already said he is retiring, and we have to thank him for his tremendous service,” he said, referring to the North Winward MP.

“Montgomery has taken North Windward safe thus far and grace will lead us home,” Gonsalves said, punning on the name of Grace Walters, who the ULP selected in March 2023 as its North Windward candidate.

“Well, Cummings in West Kingstown ain’t have nothing to say against Keisal, other than try to run she down personally,” he said referring to Peters.

Peter made history as the country’s first female minister of foreign affairs when she was appointed to the post in August 2022, after two years as the junior minister.

However, in July 2024, she was relieved of the foreign ministry portfolio and reassigned to national mobilisation.

‘Well, they began by saying — remember they start to say she using skin bleach?” Gonsalves said.

“What a beautiful black woman nuh. She look like she does use bleach? And Cummings say she’s a fat lady. Well, Cummings, when you get licks, you will say the fat lady sings,” Gonsalves said.

On Sept. 28, Cummings told an NDP campaign event in Largo Height that “a fat lady” questions constituents seeking help to repair their damaged homes about their political allegiance.

He did not identify the “fat lady” but on Oct. 2, Gonsalves said that the opposition MP was referring to Peters.

He told Sunday’s convention”

“This is a woman who come from the bowels of the working class, the bowels of the working class. Her father used to work at the port.”

He said Peters had not  “just come by with labour so”, adding that when Peters was 14,  she represented the ULP choir at a St. Kitts Labour Party event in St. Kitts.

“Nah now we watching she ah nuh. Is long time we get we eye pon she. We sent she to the university. She has done magnificently, and she having Cummings going crazier than ever.”

In 2010, on his second attempt to win West Kingstown, Cummings defeated the ULP’s Michelle Fife and held on to the seat amidst challenges by Deborah Charles in 2015 and 2020.

Meanwhile, Gonsalves said that the ULP was considering its alternatives in South Windward, as Stephenson, who is into his third five-year term as MP there has said he is not running anymore.

“And we have one or two persons in mind to take over from Snaggy in the Southern Grenadines, because Snaggy say he wants to take a rest from that,” Gonsalves said.

“And I’m warning all of those candidates, NDP candidates in Kingstown. We coming at every single one of you. We coming at Leacock. We coming at Cummings, and we coming at [Fitz] Bramble,” he said.

The NDP has held East Kingstown since 1984 and Central and West Kingstown since 2010.

Gonsalves said that the performance of the ULP’s Carlos Williams, after the passage of Hurricane Beryl on July 1 “will keep [opposition Leader Godwin] Friday more at home”.

Williams failed in his bid in 2020 to unseat the opposition leader in the North Grenadines, which he has been representing since 2001.

“We going to keep the nine that we have, and we’re going to add more to those nine come election 2025,” Gonsalves said, referring to the parliamentary division.

The convention also re-elected Gonsalves, 78, as political leader of the ULP, and Daniel, 70, as the deputy political leader.