Three electoral ‘hot seats’

by Eldonté
Samuel

Towards the end of 2024, in Parliament, Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves broadly hinted in the direction of general elections that are constitutionally due later this year.

As the contents of the 2025 National Budget were revealed in parliament, including the announcement that there will be no new taxes, many concluded that it was not just an education budget nor a climate resilient budget, there were conclusions that Budget 2025 was also an elections budget. During our weekend editions, SEARCHLIGHT will be highlighting ‘matters election’ ahead of the “ringing of the bell” by Prime Minister Gonsavles.

This week we take a look at some “hot seats”.

In the 2020 election cycle the New Democratic Party (NDP) suffered a nail-biting loss, losing the North Leeward seat to Carlos James of the Unity Labour Party (ULP) by just one vote. There were 6,182 registered voters, but only 4,580 votes were cast, with 39 ballots rejected.

The NDP had retained this seat in the 2015 elections by a margin of 12 votes with Roland ‘Patel’ Matthews who flipped it in 2010 with a margin of 182 votes.

Since 1974 this seat has been won by the St Vincent Labour Party (SVLP)/ ULP a total of five times, while the NDP held it for six election cycles. For the upcoming elections, the NDP is off the ground early with a new candidate in Dr Kishore Shallow. North Leeward is one of the “hot seats” to watch.

Another hot seat to watch in that of North Windward. Over the last 20 years, this seat has leaned toward the ULP since Montgomery Daniel won it in 2001, wresting it from Monty Roberts of the NDP.

Since 2001, Daniel has consistently secured a majority, with an average winning margin of 52.5%. His lowest margin was 50.4% in 2020 when he won by just 62 votes, nudging out the NDP’s newcomer, Shevern John. In that election, 5,292 votes were cast out of 6,887 registered voters. This time around, Daniel will not be leading the charge for the ULP up North; he has endorsed Grace Walters as his successor, so the upcoming elections is expected to be an all-female affair between Walters and the NDP’s Shevern John.

The East St. George seat has traditionally been a stronghold of the SVLP and later, the ULP, having only been won by the NDP’s Louis Jones in 1989 and 1994 after the passing of Robert Milton Cato, who represented the SVLP from 1961 to 1984.

In 2015, the ULP’s Camillo Gonsalves took over the baton from Clayton Burgin who had carried the seat for a total of three election cycles.

His first win was secured with 3,135 votes. Thus, when Gonsalves won the seat in 2020 by only 196 votes, the NDP, represented by newcomer Laverne Gibson-Velox, viewed this as a promising opportunity for the next election. During the 2020 election, 5,576 votes were cast from a total of 8,636 registered voters. East St George will be a “hot seat” to watch.

Overall, in the 2020 General Elections, there were 98,119 registered voters, but only 65,687 registered voters participated in the process.

This was the year when the NDP captured the majority of the votes, but were pipped by the ULP which had a majority of seats and therefore formed government for a fifth consecutive term. (Main source of data; Electoral Office website)