Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves on Sunday likened himself to the Bible prophet Jeremiah and suggested that he, too, was destined to lead.
“… before I was in my mother’s womb, the good Lord knew me, and he blessed me, and he sanctified me, and he set me apart, and through you, his proclamation of me as a prophet to this nation has been fulfilled,” Gonsalves said.
The 79-year-old leader, who has been prime minister since March 2001, said that God has decided that the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) will not take the reins of power in the Nov. 27 general election.
“NDP can’t win this election,” Gonsalves told his Unity Labour Party’s (ULP) youth convention in Diamond.
“This matter, God will not allow NDP to win this election, but God acts through human beings,” he said.
“I am claiming God on our side because our side is the side of goodness and nobility and righteousness for the people, especially the young people, as we set about to own the future.”
Pundits have said that the NDP is mounting its strongest challenge to the ULP’s hold on power since the NDP was booted out of office in March 2001. The outcome of the polls, analysts said, could determine the future of both of the nation’s political parties.
Gonsalves urged young ULP supporters to reflect on all that he told them in his 36-minute speech.
“… and those who have dissatisfactions, remember your satisfactions, remember your blessings, and count your blessings one by one,” he said.
Gonsalves told young Labourites that the campaign is about them. “Because while Labour is working for all of us, this campaign, fundamentally, is about owning the future, and the future is yours. I am going to help you in owning that future,” he said, echoing the ULP’s campaign theme.
“I have been working hard to help you to own the future,” said Gonsalves, 79, who said he works 19 hours a day.
“I am not doing what I am doing because I have anything else to prove in my life. The good Lord has blessed me, and through you, you have elevated me to the office of prime minister for 25 years. This election is helping you to own your future,” Gonsalves said.
‘a first world nation’ in 15 years
He gave his perspective on judging which political party can best help the nation’s youth to own their future.
“First of all, like in all life and living, you judge persons about what they can do for you in the future, what they have done in the past and in the present,” he said.
Gonsalves noted that most of the youth at the convention do not know what life in St. Vincent and the Grenadines was like before the ULP came to office in March 2001.
“You have come and I have put certain things in place for you, and some people take it for granted, but all what we have done in the past and what we are doing currently, while it is a guide as to what will be done in the future, it is not all,” the prime minister said.
“… we have laid the platform in every material particular to put St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the next 15 years, to put this country as a first world nation. … to make this country, put it on a par with London, Paris, New York and Toronto; to lift further our standards of life and living.
“When you go to those places, you must say, whatever is there is here, maybe on a smaller scale, but whatever is there is here,” Gonsalves said.
“Already, you are beginning to see that. And important in that regard is your facility with technology, your education and your training. These are things which are going to help us to own the future optimally than ever before.”
Gonsalves told convention delegates that he was the youngest lecturer with a doctorate at the University of the West Indies when he was employed there in 1974.
“This man was the first person in his family to go to university,” the prime minister said, adding that there was no pipe-borne water or electricity at his house until he was 14 years old — in 1960.
“This man, when he was a child, slept on bedding in the hall with a two-room house –all and chamber.
He said that when he became a teenager and started to go to the Grammar School, there was no space for him in the house.
“I sleep on a bunk in the storeroom of my mother’s shop. Is not where you’re born, is not where you come from, is where you’re going,” he told the youth delegates.
The prime minister said he went to primary school barefoot from age 5 to 12.
“The first time I had a hard shoe is when I was pre-selected — only boy from Colonarie school — to go write the Grammar School exam,” he said, adding that 250 to 270 students wrote the exam.
“In those days, they took in 30. If I didn’t come in the first 30, … if I didn’t get a chance, I would have gone work land with my father, and you would have seen me when you pass Colonarie. I would have fruits and vegetables selling to you as you pass by to buy something from this old man,” Gonsalves said.
In the speech, he highlighted the opportunities in education that his government has provided through universal access to secondary education, of its aim of having one university graduate per household on average by 2030.
Only unwise people would actually believe that nonsense that you are spewing about God would not allow, and that your party is the side of goodness and nobility and righteousness for the people. What God would allow is that the consequences we receive would be a result of the choices that we make.
NDP will ruin saint vincent.
Comrade you are being sacrilegiou, if the principles of free and fair election are applied. It is possible that the ULP could loose the election. The writing was on the wall for the election which was held in the year 2020 in which the NDP won the popular vote.
The election dynamics have changed since the year 2020 notably, the entrance of Doctor Shallow et al. There is likely to be a change in the constituency of North Leeward as a result. Therefore, the Comrade should not speak so fast.
If very thing else remains and holds
constant, all the NDP has to do is to win two other constituencies held by the Ulp. The constituencies of North Leeward and South Windward remain competitive at the time of speaking. There is no proverbial promise land for the Comrade. I.repeat there is no promise land for the ULP or the Comrade.
God will not allow ULP to win neither because of what they did with that vaccine mandate in 2021.
This is how troubling things have become when Prime Minister Gonsalves can speak so carelessly, without fear of consequence, not even from the Church, likening himself to a prophet and declaring a so called ‘prophetic word” that God will not allow the NDP to win.
He speaks of righteousness and nobility, yet his government dismissed hundreds of public servants under a vaccine mandate. He is at the center of an of appeal of a case against a public servant accused of ATTEMPTING to block him during a protest, a case that lingered for almost four years before being thrown out by a magistrate. Still, there is an appeal? 4 years she has not set foot in her classroom, on half salary and need to request permission yo travel. Tell me, what is righteous about that?
What is righteous about a “prophet” whose name has surfaced repeatedly in allegations of rape and inappropriate relationships with young women? What, truly, are the qualities of a prophet?
Are we to convince our young people that SVG can become a first world nation in 15 years, despite our high debt burden, rising crime, worsening brain drain, and alarming levels of youth unemployment, when other islands in stronger positions would never make such a claim? To me, it’s insulting. It suggests that our young people are either incapable of reasoning or too brainwashed to question such rhetoric.
By the way, I, too, hold a PhD, the first in my family to attend university and rise from poverty, from a home without piped water or an indoor toilet. Is this your psychology degree hard at work trying to appeal to the youth as one who were just like them? Maybe the youth should focus on whether they are living in poverty or extreme poverty and if with the education, they will get a job that will allow them to one day become “millionaires before 30” or maybe they need a father in minsterial position for 25 years. Even I with my PhD should probably consider a change in position so that I can purchase bags and shoes that cost the entire salary of some Vincentians, but alas, I will continue to shop on shein and ‘tek little and live’ lest I be accused of sitting high on some gravy train.
Ill end my long comment by saying this, while you PM consider yourself to be like Jeremiah, there are many who see you as Pharoah and like Moses, they are shouting, “Let my people go!” TIME FOR A CHANGE!
Notice that all the pundits and ordinary citizens who damn the Comrade and the ULP for their projects and performance say not a word about the policies and potential of the NDP, and instead vacuously shout that it’s time for a change.
THE VACCINE MANDATE IS THE BIGGEST HOOK IN THE GILL OF THE ULP! Good riddance ULP!
C.Ben-David the favorite layou son will see a changed in central Leeward. Even your home town is ripe for the picking.
C.Ben-David of layou, who is more an ordinary citizen than you. I saw you last week and point you our to my wife. What is the hell wrong with you? You think that you are a better animal than the rest of us. Don’t get me annoyed now so that I will tell it all.
God will not allow NDP fo rraappee an mek young model go crazzzy 🏡
Ralph should be ashamed for calling God’s name in regards to this election. God is not mocked!!