Camillo urges South Windward not to allow gripes to fracture ULP unity

East St. George MP Camillo Gonsalves has urged supporters of the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP) not to allow their gripes to fracture party unity.

He told the candidate selection meeting in Biabou on Saturday that unity has been the main ingredient of any political party that his father, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, has been involved.

The younger Gonsalves comments came shortly before his father, who is also political leader of the ULP, told the meeting that he had asked three of the contenders to stand down, and asked the conference to nominate Darron Rodan John as their candidate in the next general election.

The East St. George MP, who is also minister of finance, noted that the now-opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) won all the seats in 1989.

“And when the voters of St. Vincent and the Grenadines began to realise the mistake that they made, in 1994, one of the first seats in this country to realise the error of their ways and return to labour was the seat of South Windward.”

The NDP lost South Windward in an election in which then MP Burton Williams broke ranks with the NDP and ran as an independent candidate and Sir Vincent Beache of the then St. Vincent Labour Party (SVLP) won the seat.

South Winward has been voting Labour since then.

Camillo Gonsalves said South Winward was the anchor of Labour in 1998, when a merger of the SVLP and Ralph Gonsalves’ Movement for National Unity (MNU) — a fringe party — resulted in the ULP.

“… when we formed government in 2001, one of the most dominant victories in the country came from the constituency of South Windward,” the finance minister said.

He said that in the constitutional reform referendum of 2009, when “almost everybody say no to the referendum”, South Windward was one of the few seats that voted yes.

South Windward is labour, and labour is South Windward,” the East St. George said, noting that the ULP has never won an election without South Windward.

“Never you forget that the majorities that we get nationally is coming from the constituency of South Windward. Never you forget that South Windward is the foundation of the Unity Labour Party. We love you and we need you.”

Gonsalves said that the party was facing “another battle” and invited ULP supporters to take any walk down memory lane.

“… I used to live as a little boy with this man here, our great leader, Ralph Gonsalves. And he wasn’t always in the ULP.”

He noted that his father started the United People Movement (UPM), and then the MNU.

“And then he came to labour, and he said, ‘We can’t just call it ‘labour’. We got to call it the ‘Unity Labour Party’. And everywhere he has gone, he said the word unity must be in the name of his party, and unity is essential to everything that we do, because we work not for ourselves, but for the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”

‘I have complaints too’

The east St. George MP said the ULP is “nothing without South Windward, and … we are nowhere and we are nothing if we are not united.

“There’s a lot of people in this world who have vanities and they have little gripes. Everybody has complaints; I have complaints too,” he told party supporters.

“But if you make your complaint and your gripe keep you from the polls, you will sabotage this great movement. You will sabotage this great party, and you will fracture the great unity that we have here in the Unity Labour Party.”

Vincentians are expected to go to the polls by November, ahead of the February 2026 constitutional deadline.

The party would be seeking an unprecedented sixth consecutive term in office and Gonsalves said that vote is more important than any other election since the ULP came to office in March 2001.

“We have the moment before us, whether we continue on the path of progress, or whether we abandon all we have gained and mash up the country and start over,” he said.

‘do not disturb progress’

He said that hotels have a do not disturb signs for their rooms, adding, “We want to say do not disturb progress that we have been making in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

“Do not disturb all of the wonderful things that you have accomplished, do not disturb the path of progress that this country is on and that this great party is leading us on.”

He said the NDP does not have a position that it wants to share with voters.

“They don’t have a policy that they want to share with you; they don’t have a plan that they want to share with you. What they want to do is go around and say, ‘Hear nuh, you vex for supnu? Come vote for me.  … Yo had a bad day? Come vote for me.  Yo man leff yo? Come vote for me.  Yo cyah buy three fuh 10? Come vote for me…’

“But they have no policy, they have no plan, they have no vision for the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”

Gonsalves said that if people listen to the NDP closely, they will see that the party wants to introduce austerity in SVG.

“Austerity means they want to balance the budget on the backs of poor people. They want to say no to social assistance, they want to say no to scholarships, they want to say no to poor relief for poor people, they want to say no to housing, they want to say no to road they want to say no to social development. And then, where are you, the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines? Out in the cold.”

Gonsalves said that sometimes when the NDP talks, their plans “slip out”, adding that they have said they want to privatise healthcare.

The finance minister said the NDP has suggested privatising the hospital that the government is building at Arnos Vale.

“If a private company is doing anything in the world, they’re doing it to make money … So, when they say that they want to privatise healthcare, they say that every single time a Vincentian goes into a clinic or a hospital, band your belly and bring your wallet, because you have to pay for healthcare in the country.

Choose what’s best for SVG

He said the NDP also said that they want to sell passports, a reference to the party’s proposed citizenship by investment programme.

“… even when America say, ‘If you sell your passport, you can’t come to America again’, they say, ‘So what? If we sell passport, we in the NDP go make money.’ Not you; not you, not you, but them and their political friends go make money, even if you can’t travel, even if your passport becomes worthless; even if crapaud smoke your pipe because you can’t send money home and you can’t travel overseas. They don’t care. This say so what. That is what they want to do to you.”

Gonsalves said that when ULP supporters grumble and say that their house has not been repaired after Hurricane Beryl, even as other people’s homes were fixed.

“Remember this that in 17 years, the New Democratic Party never build one single house anywhere in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

“So, if you’re waiting for your house you know labour go build it and you know NDP will never build it. Those are two things you have to have in your head.”

Gonsalves said Central Kingstown MP, St. Clair Leacock, said he wants to stop all foreign investment in SVG.

“He wants to put a cap on it. And when he said that, he mean, he don’t want no more Sandals. He said he don’t want no more airlines coming into the country. He don’t want no more hotels expanding in the country.

“Why? Because he think that investment is good for labour and bad for NDP. But investment is good for the Vincentians. So, the first thing you have to say is what is best for my country not what is best for my party? And when you hear them talking like that, you know therein it for themselves, and they’re not in it for you.”

Gonsalves said that “the shallow one” said that too many people are getting Public Assistance in SVG.

“What is he saying? That when he come in, he will cut you off of public assistance, if you know an old woman who living alone and just holding things together with a little public assistance, know that the NDP will cut that.

“And if you have a single mother who barely making things meet with she two children and she needs a little public assistance, know that NDP will cut that. And if you know there is a disabled person in your village in a wheelchair or they deaf or they have autism, whatever it is, know that the NDP want to cut that as well.”

He said the NDP and the ULP are not the same.

“This party is the party of labour love. This party is the party of a people-centred government. This party is the party that puts Vincentians first and they want to destroy it all so that they can enrich themselves.

“South Windward, are we going to let that happen?” Gonsalves said to shouts of “No!”

“South Windward, are we going to let the NDP roll back everything that we have done in St Vincent and the Grenadines?”

Gonsalves said the NDP wants to destroy everything that the ULP has done.

“They want to burn down this country so that they could rule over the ashes of St Vincent and the Grenadines, and the only thing standing between them and their dreams are you.

“The only thing standing between backwardness and continued progress is you? The only thing that can stop them once and for all, is you, and that is why this election is so important,” he said.