KINGSTOWN,  St Vincent (CMC) — St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves has been selected as the candidate of the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP) to contest the North Central Windward constituency in the country’s next general elections, widely expected this year, ahead of the February 2026 constitutional deadline.

Gonsalves, who celebrated his 79th birthday last Friday and is one of the longest-serving heads of government in the Caribbean, received the nod at the party’s constituency conference over the last weekend.

His son Camillo Gonsalves, who is also the finance minister, told supporters that his father still has much more energy than the rest of the party members and “we are celebrating a birthday. “We’re celebrating his nomination and acceptance as the candidate for North Central Windward,”  Gonsalves said.

The ULP , which came to power in March 2001, will be seeking a sixth consecutive term in office, with Gonsalves at its helm for almost all of the 27 years since a merger between his fringe party, the Movement for National Unity and the St Vincent Labour Party resulted in the formation of the ULP.

Gonsalves has often commented that he has “the youngest brain” in his Cabinet and that he has contested every general election in St Vincent and the Grenadines since 1979.

The prime minister has been representing North Central Windward since 1994, and the finance minister said that the main opposition, New Democratic Party (NDP), has run 10 different candidates in the last 10 elections in the district.

“They don’t have anybody rooted in North Central Windward who will bear the slings and arrows and work for the people. They try a thing, they lose, they gone. They try a next thing,” Camillo Gonsalves said.

“But, Ralph Gonsalves has stayed with you through defeats, through victory, through hard times and good times. He has been with you as your friend and your partner and your leader in North Central Windward and in St Vincent and the Grenadines.”

The finance minister said no weapon formed against the prime minister would prosper “because he is here to lift up and advance the people of St Vincent and the Grenadines. He’s doing God’s work.”

“And great is his reward. And great has been his reward as the representative of North Central Windward and the representative of St Vincent and the Grenadines as its leader. And great shall be the reward again, when he is re-elected,” he added.