“Labour is very much alive”

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr. Ralph Gon­salves, whose Uni­ty Labour Par­ty (ULP) was de­feat­ed in Thurs­day’s gen­er­al elec­tion af­ter 25 years in of­fice, say the par­ty is very much alive and he will re­turn to Par­lia­ment as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion.

Gon­salves con­ced­ed de­feat in an ad­dress on Sat­ur­day, but of­fered no spe­cif­ic con­grat­u­la­tions to the new Prime Min­is­ter God­win Fri­day, or the New De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NDP), which won 14 of the 15 seats in the uni­cam­er­al par­lia­ment.

He spoke in omi­nous terms about the new NDP ad­min­is­tra­tion, even as on­ly the prime min­is­ter has been sworn in, with the cab­i­net ex­pect­ed to be sworn in next week.

“Be­lieve me this: at this very height of the NDP is tri­umphal­ism, it is the mo­ment of the start of their de­scent. And de­scend they will,” Gon­salves said.

“The un­rav­el­ling usu­al­ly com­mences im­per­cep­ti­bly, and then be­comes a flood of dis­ar­ray, as the cen­tre can­not hold and things fall apart. His­to­ry and ex­pe­ri­ence so teach and in our fast-chang­ing world, the clock of their demise is al­ready tick­ing,” he said.

“I shall with dig­ni­ty, du­ty and love, as­sume the role of leader of the op­po­si­tion un­til pro­pi­tious cir­cum­stances de­ter­mined oth­er­wise,” said Gon­salves, who was op­po­si­tion leader from 1998 to 2001.

“I have trod this road be­fore. It is not un­fa­mil­iar to me. Please be as­sured that the men­ace of the years finds and shall find me un­afraid; it is my lot to ac­cept, in­deed pre­fer a stren­u­ous life to one of ig­no­ble ease.

“There re­main in me no per­son­al van­i­ties or demons to over­come. I ac­cept, af­ter prayer­ful con­sid­er­a­tion that I have been set apart and blessed for a time like this.”

He said he will con­vene a meet­ing of the col­lec­tive lead­er­ship of the ULP on Sun­day to re­ceive ad­vice on the two in­di­vid­u­als to be ap­point­ed as sen­a­tors.

“Clear­ly, giv­en the lop­sided ma­jor­i­ty of the new regime in the Par­lia­ment, we in the op­po­si­tion will be rou­tine­ly out-vot­ed, but the peo­ple of St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines will judge us on the ba­sis of the qual­i­ty of our work, which I as­sure you will be of the high­est stan­dard and across our coun­try, out­side of Par­lia­ment, by our works, you will know us even bet­ter and more as­sured­ly,” Gon­salves said.

“Labour is very much alive. We shall ren­dezvous with the elec­torate for­mal­ly again in 2030 or be­fore, as the cir­cum­stances de­mand or ad­mit.”

He said the line of march pro­vid­ed by the lead­er­ship of the NDP is to, first, to help sup­port­ers un­der­stand “that our po­lit­i­cal set­back is tem­po­rary and must be al­tered in­to a per­ma­nent ad­vance.

“Thus, let us turn this set­back in­to an ad­vance,” Gon­salves said, adding that there must al­so be re­new­al.

“Re­new­al, re­build­ing is sweet. In­deed, it is the sweet­est of life’s ex­pe­ri­ences. And with­in and out­side the labour fam­i­ly, there is abun­dant ma­te­r­i­al, some even hid­den or sub­merged, which is avail­able for re­new­al.”

Gon­salves echoed po­et­ry stat­ing that in re­new­ing, “we must lis­ten to our par­ents and grand­par­ents, but al­so to our daugh­ters and our sons.

“The ul­ti­mate pur­pose of this re­new­al is to make a whole daugh­ter and a whole son and bro­ken, not nec­es­sar­i­ly per­fect, ones out of the com­pro­mis­es and con­tra­dic­tions that our his­to­ry and cir­cum­stances have made us.”

The third el­e­ment was that the par­ty must “de­fend res­olute­ly our gains and ad­vance them fur­ther”.

The for­mer prime min­is­ter al­so said Labourites must “re­sist al­so res­olute­ly in every ma­te­r­i­al par­tic­u­lar, any at­tempt by the new regime to sell out St Vin­cent and the Grenadines or its pat­ri­mo­ny.

“Every­one knows what I’m talk­ing about. There is thus a clear roadmap for us on the way for­ward. De­tails will emerge.”

Dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign, the ULP has pre­sent­ed some NDP pro­pos­als, in­clud­ing the in­tro­duc­tion of a cit­i­zen­ship by in­vest­ment pro­gramme, as plans to sell out the coun­try.

The for­mer prime min­is­ter con­grat­u­lat­ed the peo­ple of St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines, in­clud­ing elec­toral per­son­nel and state in­sti­tu­tions, for their con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to pop­u­lar democ­ra­cy.

“We in the Uni­ty Labour Par­ty are not among those who al­ways in­sist that democ­ra­cy on­ly works when we win and cry foul when we lose,” he said, adding that the par­ty will al­ways ac­cept the will of the peo­ple, whether it wins or los­es.

“In­deed, our great par­ty has con­tributed im­mense­ly to the build­ing of the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions that un­der­pin our elec­toral democ­ra­cy.”

Gon­salves was the on­ly ULP can­di­date to win a seat in the elec­tion, with the ca­su­al­ties in­clud­ing his son and East St. George in­cum­bent, Camil­lo Gon­salves, who had been fi­nance min­is­ter since 2017.

An­oth­er promi­nent mem­ber who was re­ject­ed by the elec­torate was Saboto Cae­sar, who was seek­ing a fourth term as MP for South Cen­tral Wind­ward.

Cae­sar and the younger Gon­salves had been iden­ti­fied as fu­ture lead­ers of the par­ty, but the for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter in his con­ces­sion speech, said that the par­ty would have to se­lect a new can­di­date for East St. George.

Mean­while, the for­mer prime min­is­ter was re­turned for an eight suc­ces­sive time since for North Cen­tral Wind­ward, a seat he has held since Feb­ru­ary 1994 – 31 years ago.

“I be­long to my con­stituents. We be­long to each oth­er. Their trust and con­fi­dence in me have en­dured through all the chang­ing scenes of life and liv­ing. The an­chor holds. their God is my God. And wher­ev­er we go, we know that we go to­geth­er with God’s grace in pro­found sol­i­dar­i­ty and love,” the for­mer head of gov­ern­ment said.

He al­so thanked the ULP’s “great team of can­di­dates” as well as the par­ty’s ac­tivists, or­gan­is­ers and sup­port­ers for their “hero­ic ef­forts” in the cam­paign.

“Some of these de­feat­ed can­di­dates will no doubt re­turn to the elec­torate again, but oth­ers are un­like­ly to. Time and cir­cum­stances will so de­ter­mine,” Gon­salves said.

“Even at this dif­fi­cult time for my coun­try, my par­ty and me, I yet again reaf­firm from the depths of my un­con­quer­able soul and the de­ter­mined spir­it of my be­ing, my deep and en­dur­ing love for my con­stituents and All the peo­ple of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines,” he said.

“It is a love that is an ever-fixed mark that looks and tem­pests and is nev­er shak­en. It is a love that brings im­mense joy, but al­so oc­ca­sions pain. The weep­ing may en­dure for a night, but joy cometh in the morn­ing. Hal­lelu­jah for the joy.

“I as­sure each and every one of you that in the fell clutch of the cir­cum­stance of my par­ty’s de­feat, I have not winced nor cried aloud un­der the blud­geon­ings of chance, my head is blood­ied, but un­bowed.”

Gon­salves said faith, his­to­ry and cir­cum­stance have con­spired to ac­cord him an­oth­er role af­ter the near-25 years as prime min­is­ter.

Gon­salves said that he can­not and would not pro­ceed alone.

“Across our lands and seas to­day, the many thou­sands of the de­feat­ed Labour army are in shock and pain,” he said.

“So, too, are the oth­er thou­sands who opt­ed wrong­ly, in my view, to stay at home for this or that rea­son, rather than em­brace Labour’s large and com­pelling vi­sion of own­ing our fu­ture.”

Dur­ing the cam­paign, Gon­salves had os­cil­lat­ed be­tween telling sup­port­ers not to grum­ble af­ter the elec­tion to plead­ing with them 36 hours be­fore the bal­lot not to re­turn to the Labour fam­i­ly.

“I tru­ly feel your pain. Still, now is not the time for pity or wal­low­ing in the de­spond of de­spair,” he said on Sat­ur­day.

“It is no more ur­gent than ever for all of us, in­clud­ing those who de­sert­ed the fam­i­ly of labour, to de­fend the im­mense gains which our peo­ple have come to know and ac­cept over the past near 25 years of ULP gov­er­nance and to ad­vance them fur­ther.”