Not so fast Camillo! – Leacock

Parliamentary representative for Central Kingstown, St Clair Leacock is rejecting the idea that supporters of the Unity Labour Party (ULP) should adopt a “Keep the Comrade There” mentality for the upcoming general elections.

Leacock was speaking on the New Times radio programme yesterday, {{more}}when he commented on an address given by Senator Camillo Gonsalves at the ULP rally last weekend in Calliaqua.

“I was struck by the approach of Senator Gonsalves in his presentation which simply boils down to the fact that, look, this is a simple election. He says that it is as simple as this; you have two leaders in the country,” Leacock said.

“His summary conclusion is that even though you are going to have 15 elections – because that is what takes place even though some people say it is one general election… He says what you need to do, it doesn’t matter. Don’t pay attention to who the ULP is putting up. Just see it as a contest between Gonsalves and Arnhim Eustace and ignore who their candidate is and just vote for Gonsalves.”

According to Leacock, the senator is basically rehashing the position that his father, Dr Ralph Gonsalves has had in past elections, when he ran the “Keep the Comrade There” campaign.

“He used different language to you. What he said was ‘Keep the Comrade There’ and so that even though you had elections across St Vincent and the Grenadines, if you went to any particular constituency, his poster, his name, his picture was always bigger than life, more plentiful and bigger than that of the candidates themselves because he obviously held the view that his colleagues could not stand on their own foot,” the parliamentarian said.

Additionally, Leacock stated that in his view, he is not running against ULP candidate, Beresford Phillips in Central Kingstown. He said that he feels like he is running against the prime minister because “in his own mind, he knows that the surrogate that he has there is not really worthy of consideration for the people of Central Kingstown.”

“Not so fast Camillo. We will not accept that kind of politics,” the parliamentarian declared. “The prime minister himself is not saying that, because he has enough political wisdom to realize that his strength now is not where it was five years ago, 10 year ago, 15 years ago and even 20 years ago. He’s tired, he’s weary, he’s recycling his speech and his comments – is a little piece of this speech, a little piece from that speech, and he is generally struggling to put speeches together.”

Leacock noted that while Senator Gonsalves may be able to highlight a number of reasons to re-elect the prime minister, it is very easy to compile a list in favour of opposition leader Arnhim Eustace as well.

“When you have an election that’s just a year off and you’re still not at the point where you can say who will run for you in West Kingstown or …in Central Kingstown, what are you offering the people of St Vincent and the Grenadines? That you go back to the Joshua days; that if I put up a broom stick you vote for a broomstick?” the parliamentarian said of the ULP.(BK)