Comrade Ralph falls

THE RESULT of the November 27 general election in St Vincent and the Grenadines is a turning point for that country and a pivotal moment for Caricom, with regional and international implications.

The 14 to one victory of Godwin Friday’s New Democratic Party (NDP) over Ralph Gonsalves’ United Labour Party (ULP) is the most decisive in the islands since 1989, when the NDP took home all 15 seats under James Mitchell. For Dr Friday, 66, it is the triumphant culmination of a slow but steady rise. For Dr Gonsalves, 79, in office since 2001, it is the end of a remarkable run.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar was quick to hail the outcome as constituting “a resounding democratic mandate” for the NDP. But individual constituency tallies paint a picture of a deeply divided country. Dr Gonsalves held his seat by 2,577 votes to 996; his party received 27,148 votes, the NDP 37,002. The overall turnout of 62 per cent was down from 2020’s 67 per cent.

Still, it’s a good moment for Dr Friday, who campaigned on promises to create “more and better-paid jobs,” deliver economic renewal, tackle “out of control” crime, and to bolster infrastructure.

The NDP has also in the past pledged to cut the country’s ties to Taiwan and to embrace China instead, a move which would have global reverberations. There are only 12 nations that maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and it’s an open question to what extent the NDP’s past thinking will prevail under Dr Friday’s leadership.

How the country will function within Caricom also remains to be seen. The gap left by Dr Gonsalves, a vocal climate justice champion and slavery reparations advocate, as well as an influential figure within the region, responsible for a range of mediations, such as that resulting in the Argyle Decree, is considerable. Foreign policy shifts within TT, Guyana and now, potentially, SVG could become bellwethers of larger bloc reconfigurations. Over all of this, the Trump administration, with its heightened stance against countries like Cuba and Venezuela, uneasily looms.

While in recent times Comrade Ralph came within the crosshairs of Ms Persad-Bissessar’s administration, and while he fired back vocally, it’s hard to say to what extent such quarrels affected his fate. The ULP leader had sought a sixth term in the face of a surging, but hardly surprising, tide against his incumbency.

He had soberly steered the country through the financial crisis, the covid19 pandemic, the La Soufrière eruption and Hurricane Beryl. He had overseen the country’s first international airport. But his vaccine mandate damaged his standing among violent sceptics. And for some, there was a feeling time was simply up.

The prospect of him as opposition leader, though, offers a tantalising lagniappe.