Will PM Gonsalves go for fourth term?

There is a possibility that Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves may contest the 2015 General Elections as Political Leader of the Unity Labour Party (ULP).{{more}}

“I tell you this, I had intended, I tell you the honest truth, to prepare the way for 2015, for one of these young men to take over the lead, young men or women to take over leadership. But I tell you the way the NDP behaving, they making me give prayerful consideration about my intention, because my conscience will not allow me to leave and to see those kind of people come, who don’t have no interest in this country to undo the great work that we would have done for fifteen years,” said Gonsalves.

Gonsalves, who would be 69 years old by 2015, said at the moment, he sees himself pursuing writing and being “free of the day to day governance of the country”.

“But it seems as though the hand that I have been dealt, I have to give prayerful consideration, because the way these people are behaving, they want to mash up this country,” said Gonsalves.

He stated that he will turn in his grave if he allows that to happen.

Political pundits have been identifying Minister of Tourism Saboto Caesar, Luke Browne, and Camillo Gonsalves, Prime Minister Gonsalves’ eldest son, as possible future Political Leaders of the ULP.

After sweeping the General Elections on March 28, 2001, Gonsalves told the public he wished to have two terms in office. The first two terms, which ran from March 2001 to November 2010, were followed by a third successful attempt at the polls in the December 13, 2010 General Elections, in which Gonsalves said there was unfinished business that he wished to take care of in a third term.

In the event that Gonsalves succeeds at the polls to govern the country for a fourth term, and that term lasts its full five years, he will set the record as the country’s longest serving Prime Minister. He will surpass Sir James Mitchell, founder of the New Democratic Party, who led this country for 16 years. (HN)