NDP View: ULP cannot contest 2025 elections on its record

(Excerpts of Political Leader of the NDP, Dr Godwin Friday’s Presentation on his weekly radio program)

The vast majority of the people will vote for the New Democratic Party. After you look at a government that has been in office for nearly a quarter of a century. We aren’t talking about five years or ten years. And ask yourself, what has been accomplished in this country in that long, long stretch of time?

They are in government, they hand out a few laptops, which they’re doing now. They gave a little lumber and galvanize. But how does that change St. Vincent and the Grenadines for the better? Ask yourself that question. What have they changed for the better in St. Vincent and the Grenadines? Unemployment is higher now than it was when the NDP was in office. That is a fact. Poverty was bad in 2018 when they refused to publish the Poverty Assessment that they themselves ordered to be done. They refused to publish it; with all kinds of flimsy excuses about contaminated data. They didn’t say contaminated data when they got the one back in 2008 where they said, they had reduced indigent poverty, never mind, three years of that report was under the New Democratic Party government.

So much of the progress that was made could have been made under an NDP government. Anyway, besides that, the point is that during that time, they were happy to say, we reduced indigent poverty to 3%. We reduced general poverty. Ten years later, when the whole thing has reversed and the country has become poorer. You have places, even in my own constituency, when people say, the people in the Grenadines are so self resilient, poverty doubled. By their own report, in Barrouallie, there are some communities there, where the poverty was over 65%. The only constituency where poverty went down in the study between 2008 and 2018 was in North Central Windward, in the Prime Minister’s constituency. And that was one of the worst performing constituencies in 2008. In fact, it was the worst in the previous study. So, between then and 2018, that was the only constituency where poverty went down. All over the country, including in my own constituency, poverty went up. And, it is my belief, and it is the experience that most of the people in this country are feeling, is that the situation has not gotten better, but it has gotten worse. There is greater poverty now than there was even ten years ago, or six, seven years ago, when the last poverty report was supposed to have come out.

What has this government done to say to people that we have used that time that you have given to us properly and well? Yes, they built a project here and there. They talk about their ‘Education Revolution’. And still, you have people coming in from countries, from Guatemala and Ecuador to bend steel and do labouring jobs to build any project. You have people here from Dominican Republic to work in major hotels here, because they’re saying that our people are not skilled. What kind of revolution in education is that? There is no such thing. We will show you how that is done. Twenty-five years is not a little bit of time. Then put your trust in us for another five years, you have no conscience, no conscience at all.

In St. Vincent and the Grenadines people are very long suffering. They also like to give people a fair chance. They say, listen, one term you can’t really demonstrate what you’re doing because you’re turning the ship around. Two terms, there are some elements of progress. They did it with NDP, but the NDP had good reason why people voted for them. The economy is growing at an average rate of nearly 5% per annum. And the NDP reaches as high as 9%, in one year.

Under this present government, you have up and down, economic growth until the average works out at less than 2 % per year in the twenty-five years that they’ve been there. And they will tell you, oh, you have all these setbacks with volcano and all that stuff. Usually, when you have those things, they may reduce certain aspects of the economy, but the rebuilding process also spurts growth in construction, which leads to a boost in economic activity, as happened in Grenada after they had the destruction in 2004 with Hurricane Ivan. So, they can’t use any lame excuses anymore. They have to be able to defend their record and that is what they can do. So, what are they doing? What are they doing? They’re in attack mode now. They’re like a bulldog, a Pit Bull. They’re attacking Friday and they’re attacking Leacock, they’re attacking ‘Nature’ and they’re attacking everybody. Attack! Attack! Attack! When you can’t run on your record; you try to destroy the Opposition.

There is no Opposition; so therefore, we could do whatever the hell we feel like. Well, they got another thing coming! They have had the bitter pill to swallow that this New Democratic Party has only grown from strength to strength and God bless the Honourable Arnhim Eustace for his excellent leadership, his fortitude, his commitment to nation building, that he kept the NDP going strong and healthy.

And for those of us who were there by his side, helping him to keep that flame alive to the point now where the New Democratic Party is on the verge of taking office again. I am so very happy and pleased to be the leader of this great party. And they have been trying their level best, everything they could to throw at us to try to destroy the party, destroy NDP, destroy democracy. You’re basically saying, listen, just let the one party rule. But we have not allowed that to happen.