NDP wants Christian Council, Elections Supervisor response on PM’s ‘sailors’ comments

The New Democratic Party (NDP) believes it is a reasonable expectation that the SVG Christian Council or Supervisor of Elections, Dora James respond to comments made by Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves about knowing who some sailors voted for in the polls.

Gonsalves was speaking on NBC radio on November 18 when he said that sailors had formed a network across St Vincent and the Grenadines in opposition of him.

“Despite what I did for the sailors, objectively, most of them voted against the ULP. Life really ain’t fair and it was the NDP who was saying ‘don’t bring them home, lock it down tight like a drum on April 7…’” the prime minister said during his November 18 radio appearance.

His statements have been deemed by some persons as irresponsible and as having suggested some infringement of the democratic process which was undertaken earlier this month in the 2020 General Elections.

NDP’s leader, Dr Godwin Friday was responding to a question on the New Times radio programme on Monday when he said it is entirely reasonable to expect a response from the SVG Christian Council or Supervisor of Elections with regard to the Prime Minister’s statements.

Adolf Davis, the president of the SVG Christian Council, through the National Monitoring Consultative Mechanism, deemed the November 5 elections as free and fair in a preliminary report post-election.

“I can’t say I will hold my breath to receive such a response. I hope that they will because this is not, this is not my country by itself…it is a country for all of us; the Christian Council, civil society, the trade unions, people in different professions, public servants…everybody, it is our country,” Friday said on Monday.

He added that everyone needed to be a part of the solution in effecting change in SVG.

Gonsalves, during his most recent appearance on NBC radio this week, defended his statement, noting that he was making an analysis based on what he was told by sailors whom he met and spoke with on the campaign trail.

“I spoke about some of the sailors who I met who told me…they ain’t voting me. Of course, there are others who naturally supported me. I didn’t say all the sailors didn’t support, arm, oppose me. I didn’t say that,” he said.

The Prime Minister also said he has no ill feelings toward the seafarers.

He added that he has and will continue to provide help to those who reach out to him.

“…But that doesn’t mean that I can’t make an analysis. Does that mean that I know for sure that when John
Browne tell me he ain’t supporting me, that he actually goes to the polls at all or when he went after I had spoken to him, that he reflected, had a change of heart and voted me instead?”