Grace jabs Shevern over party leaders’ vaccine mandate stance

The incumbent Unity Labour Party’s (ULP) candidate for North Windward, Hospital Administrator Grace Walters, has jabbed her opponent over the COVID-19 vaccine mandate that resulted in hundreds of public sector workers losing their jobs in 2021.

At the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) Warm-Up Rally in London on Saturday, Shevern John urged Vincentian voters to remember what life was like under the ULP over the last five years.

She said voters should consider Walters’ position when the government imposed the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

“The question is, where was the voice of the government representative who wants to come and represent you now? Where was the voice for the woman, for the teachers, for all those who lost their jobs under the vaccine mandate?” John said.

“Where was that voice? They were nowhere to be found, and they will be nowhere to be found after the next general election.”

Walters responded to John on Tuesday at the ULP’s “Labour Strong” rally in Richmond Hill, Kingstown, where Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves announced that the general elections will be held on Nov. 27.

“I heard some people went up to North Windward to beg a chance. They said, give them a try. But North Windward has a message for them, and they should be very familiar with it, because it’s a word they love. North Windward says to tell them no.”

Walters is making her first bid to retain North Windward in the ULP column for a sixth consecutive election, as the incumbent MP, Montgomery Daniel, who has held the seat since 2001, will not be seeking re-election.

John, a former educator, fell 62 voters short of unseating Daniel when she made her first political outing in 2020.

“They’re asking me about vaccine. I want to say to you, ‘Madam, ask your chairman. Ask him, the one who said that this administration did not do enough to ensure that the people of North Windward took the vaccine,” Walters said.

“Ask your leader who spoke as a public figure, your leader who said that he believes that the more people who took the vaccine is one way to combat the COVID pandemic — and I’m reading it — and the crisis in the country, that it was something that can help us get back to some level of normalcy sooner rather than later. And the sooner we get to herd immunity, which is accelerated by the vaccine, is the quicker we will get back to normal. Your leader said that, so ask him.”

Like the ULP, the NDP had urged Vincentians to get vaccinated against COVID-19. However, unlike the ULP, the NDP opposed mandatory vaccination, and some NDP MPs did not take the jab and were subjected to special arrangements in Parliament because of their unvaccinated status.

‘bandwagonist politics’

Walters urged John to “stop with the bandwagonist politics and speak on policies.

“For example, my dear friend, tell the people of North Windward your plans to deal with illicit drugs and drug-related challenges. I will say it here again, we nah ha’ the time for the hate and bad energy eh.”

Walters said the ULP believes in delivery.

“And since we know now that you love to cry, we will certainly give you something to cry about on election day,” she said.

During her speech on Saturday, John urged her former students to support her, saying, partly in the Vincentian vernacular, “I stick with you through the thick and the thin. When you bawl, me bawl too, because we love cry.”