‘Lift me up. Please, I beg you,’ Gonsalves tells former supporters

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves on Tuesday begged former supporters of the incumbent Unity Labour Party (ULP) to return to the “Labour family” even as he accused some of them of being ungrateful.

Gonsalves, who earlier in the campaign had told party supporters not to grumble about their grievances until after the election, said on Tuesday night that he knows some of them are hurting.

“And for those who are hurting, I feel your pain, but I promise you come home and stay with labour, and this patriarch of labor promises you that in the next term, whatever pain you may have, that pain will be eased and the hurt will be lifted, as we move St. Vincent and the Grenadines towards the First World status, Gonsalves said.

The 79-year-old leader is asking for a sixth consecutive five-year term in office, promising that in 15 years, the ULP can take SVG to a “first world” country of a special kind.

He said that I “first world” SVG, “your children and grandchildren would enjoy unprecedented prosperity as we continue the transformation in lifting St. Vincent and the Grenadines higher and to lift us to a first-world status, so that by the end of a 15 year period, the standards of life and living in London, Paris, New York and Toronto will be no better than ours”.

Gonsalves said that because SVG’s climate is more equitable and the environment cleaner, “I assure you that your lives and your livelihoods would be far better than even in those advanced countries as we move to a first-world status.

“That is the vision that we present to you.”

Gonsalves outlined what he said was the progress that had been made under the ULP administration, which came to office in March 2001.

He said indigence had fallen from 26 to 4% of the population, adding that the ULP was supporting and protecting poor people more than ever before.

“Everyone that you know, even NDP people, when you meet them by the side, they say that Ralph has a good heart,” the prime minister said, adding that some of his supporters sometimes say his heart is too soft.

“But the point is this, all of us are on the dangerous road to Jericho, and on that dangerous road, any one of us could be robbed and injured, and we need a good Samaritan to come by and help. And in the eyes of the Lord, we are all made equal, and we have to look out for one another,” Gonsalves said.

“What I can’t tolerate, though, is some of the ungrateful and bad-minded set of people; some of them,” he told party supporters in Arnos Vale at the ULP’s “Come Home to Labour” rally.

“Young people, women, elderly men, everybody, come back home to labour, if you had strayed,” the 79-year-old leader who is seeking a sixth five-year term in office said.

“Please. Please. Help us to help you,” Gonsalves said, as Josh Groban’s “You Raise Me UP” played in the background.

“Lift us up. Lift me up. Please, I beg you. Lift me up. Lift these comrades up so that we can be lifted up together. We’re going to first-world status. Let us beat the NDP worse than ever get licks,” Gonsalves said towards the end of a 50-minute speech that began around midnight.

“Lift me up, please, I beg you. Lift me up. Let us lift up each other. Don’t sell out our country. The NDP have a lot of bad-minded and wicked people in their leadership. Give us a massive victory.”

Gonsalves said that the ULP has won “the argument” and the “opinion”, adding, “It is now up to you to keep the faith with Labour and with De Comrade and with this fantastic team.”

The prime minister said that some people, whom he did not identify, write things because they are “underpayment of Chinese and passport sellers.

“You have some vagabonds masquerading as independent people. Don’t pay attention to that. Don’t be swayed by any of that. We are the anchor with Almighty God, and we will hold,” Gonsalves said, as the song continued to play.

“We will hold. Let me hear you say, Labour. Labour family! lift us up together.

“Help me. Help to save the soul of our country. I promise you I shall be faithful to you,” GOnsalves said and urged supporters to turn out to the polls and vote Labour.

He said the ULP had been on a long journey since it came to office in March 2001.

“… and since 2020, the journey has been particularly perilous,” Gonsalves said, adding that as he pays tribute to Jimmy Cliff, who died about a day earlier,  “we have many more rivers to cross, many, many more rivers to cross”.

Gonsalves pointed out that he had been involved in politics for 46 years.

“These elections are the 11th in which I’m participating as a candidate,” he said, noting that he had contested more polls than former prime minister James Mitchell or former chief minister Ebenezer Theodore Joshua.

“We have suffered defeats, and we have enjoyed victories and triumphs, and whenever we had setbacks, together, we turned those setbacks into advances,” Gonsalves said.

“And over the last 25 years, this great Labour family, in conjunction with all others in our country, we have done magnificent work together to lift our country from the depths to higher heights.”

Gonsalves said that when the ULP came to office in 2001, St. Vincent and the Grenadines was the poorest country in the Caribbean, after Guyana and Haiti.

“After 25 years, despite all the challenges which we have faced, our historical inheritances, our small island limitations, all the slings and arrows of misfortune from nature and the Ill winds of the global economy and the political turmoil, and through all the changing scenes of life, through all the vicissitudes of life and living, the anchor of Labour held.”

He said that Labour has governed SVG for 56 or 70% of the time from internal self-governance in 1969 to the present.  

“… almost every single thing of value, of merit and worth that has been built over the last 56 years in this country, has been built by the family of labour,” Gonsalves said.

“In these perilous times in which we live, in these challenging regional and global circumstances, this is not the time to take risks.”