Prince urges South Windward to remain faithful to ULP

Marriaqua MP Jimmy Prince has urged South Windward to remain faithful to the Unity Labour Party, even as a new candidate, Darron Rodan John, will represent the party there in general elections later this year.

Prince, who will also seek a third five-year term in his district, said that the constituency has remained a bastion of Labour since 1972, when South Windward was separated from Marriaqua.

In 1989, all 15 constituencies in St. Vincent and the Grenadines voted for the New Democratic Party. South Windward returned to Labour in 1994, after its MP, Burton Williams, ran as an independent candidate after a fall out with then prime minister, the late Sir James Mitchell.

However, it was not until the following election cycle, in 1998, that Marriaqua swung back to Labour and has been voting that same way since then.

“We in Marriaqua, like you, are sending a message this time again to everybody that the ULP will continue to be in governance in this country,” Prince, who is also minister of health, said at the South Windward constituency conference in Biabou.

“We, like you, believe that only the ULP is the caring party, the competent party, the experienced party, the visionary party, to take St. Vincent and the Grenadines forward.”

He said he did not know what the NDP’s message has been recently, adding that over the last two years, the NDP had advocated for a citizenship by investment programme (CBI) — which the ULP opposes.

“Now the narrative is changing because the bottom is dropping out from the CBI bucket, and they’re scrambling to another narrative, and they’re saying, lamely, ‘Well, time fuh aryo fuh go. Alyo dey fuh too long,” Prince said.

“Since when too long is a crime in St. Vincent and the Grenadines? As a matter of fact, we’re not here long enough. The way we have been behaving in government, the way we’ve been operating in government, tells you that we have a long way to go.”

Prince said that the opposition has also been saying that they should be given a chance.

“Is that a reason to vote somebody in? … This is a serious era. This is a time when the world order is changing radically, and requires a kind of response that is not available in the NDP,” he said.

“That response resides automatically and strongly in the ULP. We can’t give anybody a chance at that,” he said, adding that politics is not a lottery game.

“Remember the party I’m talking about, your party, is the party that introduced an education revolution. Remember when universal education was a concept only?” he said, referring to the policy that the ULP implemented in 2005, guaranteeing a space in secondary school for all students who complete primary school.

“Before that, only 39 or 40% had that privilege. And I use the word privilege advisedly,” Prince said.

“So, that is the government that the NDP is trying to replace, without the narrative, without the plan, without a vision, without leadership and they want us to take that seriously…

“Now, people go to preschool and start thinking about which universities they’re going to. This never happened in the history of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. You have people waking up, going to their computer and doing university degrees paid for by the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”


Prince said that before the ULP came to office in 2001, some people had to wait until they were old to attend or even think about going to university.

He said the opposition would convince some people to vote for it.

“… but you need to be strong when it comes to you with their foolishness about there too long, about my turn now.”

He emphasised the ULP social programme, telling constituents:

“But we have people paid by the government walking around St. Vincent and the Grenadines and attending to elderly people. That’s a revolutionary activity. We have people in Georgetown, 78 of them, at the moment, getting free haemodialysis. Free! That’s revolutionary.”

Prince said there were 101 people from his constituency enrolled in free university courses.

“Is that not a revolution?  … You put all of that together and you see for yourself what this government has been doing. You can’t sit down and say, ‘Boy, let me just see wey dem go do.’ You can’t do that because we ain’t going back. We’re not going back. We took over this country in 2001 and we are marching forward. No NDP. Not this time for sure.”

He said that SVG has just come through what he described as “a special period” of the COVID-19 pandemic, the April 2021 eruption of La Soufriere and Hurricane Beryl in July 2024.

“No other country in this world has ever suffered under these triple disasters as we have,” Prince said, adding that his government came out “with flying colours”.

He said the country’s restorative actions have been “the envy of a number of countries around the world.

“We build houses. We have income support to farmers and other workers. We have production support. We have people who were out of work and got money.

“I can’t, in my research, find a place in this world where this has ever happened. That is visionary and caring.

“…We have a record and will stand on that record. You need to know what our record is so that when you go out there, you’re armed with information to tell them what we do this country. This country will continue to move forward under the ULP, under the leadership of Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, until he is ready to go home.”

Prince said that under Gonsalves — who turns 79 in August and has been leading the ULP since December 1998 — SVG has “the best leadership in the Caribbean at the moment and we not changing for nothing”.