Camillo wins big in East St George

Unity Labour Party (ULP) supporters in East St George voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday, December 9, creating a historic victory for Camillo Gonsalves, the ULP’s candidate for the general elections in that area.

Camillo, the first son of ULP political leader Dr Ralph Gonsalves, received 3,124 of the votes cast, compared to 2,521 accumulated by the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) Linton Lewis,{{more}} 34 by the Democratic Republican Party’s (DRP) Calvert Baptiste and 13 by the St Vincent Green Party’s Kadmiel McFee.

“I am ecstatic that the people of East St George showed me this confidence and faith and I am humbled by the outpouring of support extended to me by the people of East St George,” said Camillo on Wednesday night from his constituency office in Calliaqua.

Camillo, who drove from his father’s home at Gorse in the constituency of North Central Windward to be with his supporters in East St George, said that he considers his historic win to be a validation of the ULP’s policies and programmes, not only in East St George, but in the country.

“I am grateful to my entire team who worked so hard to make this a reality, Clayton Burgin and everybody who was involved,” said Camillo.

The first time candidate said that he never had any doubt that the ULP would have won the election and he his seat, “because this was a seat that has been a Labour Party seat traditionally and I was running against a NDP candidate who was rejected on multiple occasions and we believed that there was a national swing towards the ULP, so we thought that those things combined for a victory.”

He said polls were done in the constituency a few months ago by Peter Wickham of CADRES, which spoke of a ULP win.

“We knew we had the seat, but we wanted to know how much we would win by and if we would past the 3,000 votes threshold,” said Camillo, who became the only candidate in Vincentian history to have ever passed the 3,100 mark in any constituency.

He said that now he has the seat, he has multiple plans for the area, as East St George is ideally positioned to take advantage of the international airport at Argyle and the new city at Arnos Vale. (LC)