Chastanet’s UWP welcomes St Lucia election date
CASTRIES, St Lucia (CMC) — The main opposition United Workers Party (UWP), led by Allen Chastanet, yesterday welcomed the announcement of the June 6 election date by Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony and said it was confident of winning the poll.
“We are settled and perfectly poised to win the next election with a comfortable margin,” the party said in a statement, even as it complained that Anthony had not followed tradition and allowing for a minimum 21-day period for campaigning.
Anthony, in his radio and television broadcast announcing the date, said Nomination Day would be May 27 and that he had until April next year under the constitution to call the election.
The campaign, according to the UWP — for control of the 17-member Parliament — will be 18 days.
“This time around all the factors are coming together to ensure that the party is ready for victory at the polls. It is a fact that the SLP (St Lucia Labour Party) has been a national disaster. Their every initiative has been at a devastating cost to the people of St Lucia — rich, poor and middle class,” the UWP said.
It said that the ruling party has failed to bring transparency, accountability, growth and jobs and has failed on almost every other election promise it has made.
“St Lucians have not forgotten the lie disguised as a promise to inject EC$100 million (One EC dollar =US$0.37 cents) into the economy immediately. We have not forgotten that five years later absolutely nothing has been done about our astronomical unemployment rate, increase crime, and spike in the cost of living.”
The SLP said that St Lucians are a resilient and un-forgetting people, and the “wool will not be pulled over their eyes by the master of illusions this time around.
“The United Workers Party has consistently shown that with proper plans come delivery. Our policies under the torch will light our way slowly but surely back into office to deliver much- needed relief to our ailing country.”
The party said that in the fight to rescue St Lucia from the “destructive hands of the SLP, changes have to be made and the UWP is ready to make that change.”
In the last general election, the UWP won six of the 17 seats that were at stake.
