Principal ditches ULP, joins NDP campaign in North Leeward

An educator who was a prominent supporter of the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP) in North Leeward in the 2020 general election has joined the opposition New Democratic Party’s (NDP) campaign in the constituency.

Adonis “Ledz” Charles, a school principal who is on pre-retirement leave, recently mounted the NDP’s platform in his home village, Fitz Hughes.

“I am willing to work with Dr. Kish [Shallow] and the New Democratic Party as a young, conscious man in North Leeward,” Charles said, admitting that he voted for the ULP in the last general election. 

“… I’m not a dotish man. To hell with that! I can no longer support them,” Charles said.

“So right now, we have to sit down and work out a plan to go pon a money campaign,’” he said, as the DJ played the dancehall song by that name.

“Yes, yes, we’re talking revenue streams,” Charles said, adding that the NDP had several revenue streams in 2020.

“Putting a $2 pon Poor Relief here and there can’t bring in the money,” he said, referring to the social assistance programme under which thousands of people receive EC$250 or EC$275 monthly.

“And for them who love and tell you but you’re ungrateful because they’re voting for Labour, tell them they ain’t got much sense because the money that they say they’re grateful about is your money, is our tax money.

“What good if they give you a scholarship but you come back in you sick, hospital ain’t got no medicine for you. The road ain’t good, so yo vehicle mash up. VINLEC and electricity still ah kill you,” Charles said.  

In early 2022, Charles emerged as a strong critic of the ULP over the farm lands in Richmond that the ULP government leased to St. Lucian businessman Rayneau Gajadhar to operate a quarry.

“It was right here I stood and I told a certain gentleman, ‘You disrespect us with the quarry. You went behind our back and sell out North Leeward farmers’ land. (Watch video here)

“And I said to him, if you ain’t meet me in 2020, you go meet me in 2025,” Charles said, adding that regardless of the day on which the election is held, “I voting for Kish and I voting for Friday”.

He was referring to Opposition Leader Godwin Friday and the NDP’s North Leeward candidate, Kishore Shallow.

In January 2022, residents of Fitz Hughes and other North Leeward communities who farm in Richmond received news that a tractor was ploughing through their fields.
They later learnt that the government had leased 58.8 acres of prime agricultural lands to Gajadhar for EC$12,000 a year to operate a quarry for 30 years.

The quarry operators will also pay the government EC$2 on each tonne of aggregate that the quarry produces.

At a community meeting with North Windward MP, Carlos James and Agriculture Minister Saboto Caesar in Chateaubelair on Feb. 3, 2022, Charles was among the constituents who publicly criticised the lease and the manner in which it was executed

“I do not want another tyrant to remain in office for another five years,” he said during the recent NDP campaign event in Fitz Hughes. “I do not want another dictator in office for another five years.”

He said one of the reasons why people talk about NDP and Friday is because “Vincentians accustomed to abuse, they’re accustomed to hardship, they’re accustomed to poverty, so they think that that is the norm.

“No, that cannot be the norm. And we are supporting Dr. Friday and the NDP because it’s a man that we can listen to, and is a man that we can bring our ideas to,” he said.

At the 2022 consultation in Chateaubelair, James made a number of promises to the constituents, including ensuring that a petrol station is re-established in Chateaubelair.

North Leeward has been without a service station for more than a decade.

There is no petrol station north of Barrouallie, which is located in the neighbouring constituency of central Leeward, and about 10 miles from Chateaubelair, a town that is the regional capital of North Windward.

Charles said that after the ULP came to office in 2001, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves wrote an article titled, “The Mess We Met”.

In that article, he listed 35 points concerning the weaknesses he claimed he met when he took over from the NDP.

“That time, the New Democratic Party left the country damn good. Money was in the treasury,” Charles said.

He said the ULP said unemployment was part of that “mess”.

“In [2000] unemployment among youths was hovering around 25%. Today, according to the UNICEF report, in 2021, unemployment among youths in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is 40%.”

He said UNICEF said poverty had risen from 37% to 48.2% under the ULP. The debt-to-GDP ratio moved from 50.2% to 96.2% or EC$2.3 billion.

“What that simply means is that for every dollar St. Vincent and the Grenadines has, less than five cents belong to us; 96 cents of that dollar going to pay debt. So how the country could progress?”

He said that in the same article, the prime minister talked about crime and violence.

“In [2000] our homicides stood about 25, 26, thereabout. Now, it’s 50 going to 60,” he said, adding that SVG has been declared the second most dangerous country in the Caribbean after Jamaica.

“Nothing is being done about crime and violence,” Charles said.

He said that the ULP talks about what wages were like under the NDP administration.

“Wake up! St. Vincent and the Grenadines workers are the lowest-paid in the whole eastern Caribbean,” Charles said, adding that minimum wage for construction workers in Grenada is EC$110 but EC$50 and EC$60 in SVG.

“A school watchman that works from three to six in the afternoon has to work four consecutive days to make a day pay,” Charles said.

“I am not telling you any lies. I’m now coming out the system. A school watchman has to work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday to make one day pay, which amounts to $42. If that is what you want, keep them in office. If that is what you want, keep them there.

“So, the whole package they give us has been a total failure. In North Leeward, we want progress,” Charles said.