Like Bajans in North America, St Lucians who make Canada and the United States their home away from home routinely play close attention to their birthplace’s political, economic and social issues.
And as in the case of immigrants from Barbados, the foreign born residents of New York, Miami, Maryland, Toronto, Washington DC and Boston who trace their roots to Vieux Fort, Castries and other parts of the patois-speaking island-nation are concerned about St Lucia’s mountain of debt, the slow rate of economic growth, high unemployment and rising crime.
But tens of thousands of St Lucians living abroad believe their homeland now have a leg-up on their Bajan neighbours who are left wondering if Freundel Stuart, Barbados’ leader, will call a snap election before 2018 when it is constitutionally due and if voters back home would opt for Mia Mottley, the Opposition Leader, in much the same way that St Lucians settled the issue by throwing out the St Lucia Party (SLP) and Dr Kenny Anthony and putting Allen Chastanet and his United Workers Party (UWP) into office.
For their part, Bajans are mindful that voters in Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, St Kitts-Nevis and now St Lucia have turned to opposition parties the first chance they got to choose a new government. The lone exception whose electorate in St Vincent and the Grenadines, who returned Dr Ralph Gonsalves to office last year.
Having seen the SLP ousted, overseas St Lucians are praying for a dynamic approach to their nation’s economic ills by the new administration, which has a comfortable 11-6 majority in parliament.
“The UWP’s victory wasn’t overly surprising, given the large crowds at its rallies in the last few days before the election,” said Cecil St Jules, a senior banking executive in New York who makes his home in New Jersey.
“The SLP and Dr Anthony did a fairly good job in bringing a measure of fiscal discipline to the running of the country in the past four years after they assumed office in 2011. We are hoping the new Prime Minister will put together a sound team of cabinet ministers who will take the country forward.
“I am not disappointed or elated at the results of the election at home,” he told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY. “The country is facing some serious economic challenges and Chastanet and the UWP must face them boldly and efficiently.”
Peter Regis, a certified public accountant in Washington DC, hailed the election results, describing the UWP’s return to office as “an opportunity” to meet the economic and urban development challenges head-on.
“The election results are ushering in a generational change,” he said of the UWP victory. “The new government and the Prime Minister have a lot to do in the face of the economic troubles confronting the country.”
Regis, who resides in Maryland, admitted the UWP victory “caught me by surprise” because up to a few weeks before Anthony called the election for June 6, the then opposition UWP and its leader seemed beset with endless “in-fighting” and a lack of readiness to take on the SLP.
“The result has brought about a passing of the torch of leadership and that can be a good thing for the country,” Regis insisted.
Peter Thomas, a business development specialist in Miami, was another St Lucian who didn’t foresee the UWP victory before Monday’s voting because the party appeared “badly divided” and “uncertain” about where it wanted to take the country.
Two months ago, Thomas, a graduate of the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill in Barbados, took to the social media and endorsed the SLP because, he explained, the UWP seemed to be in disarray while the SLP was exuding confidence.
Inexplicably, he complained, the SLP and Anthony suddenly went negative, raising “unwarranted questions” about Chastanet that in the end may have hurt the SLP but not the UWP.
“It was a grave error by the prime minister [Anthony] to take the campaign in that negative direction,” said Thomas. “Now, we must give the new prime minister [Chastanet] a chance to get his proposed economic programme underway. We will wait to see the team he puts together. We need a strong cabinet of ministers and other decision-makers. I am guardedly optimistic about the future.”
Cornelius Herrelle, an international trade specialist in Toronto is convinced that while the UWP won the election fair and square, Anthony contributed significantly to the SLP’s defeat by mounting a negative campaign.
“When the campaign began I said it was the SLP’s to lose,” he recalled. “But what the party did was to conducted the same campaign they mounted in 2011 without changing much of what was presented to the people five years ago. There was nothing new. Back in 2011, the UWP lost because of party infighting but this year the SLP made some tactical errors in its approach to voters. And that contributed to the UWP’s victory.”
In short, many St Lucians blame Anthony for his party’s defeat.
“There wasn’t a need for the SLP to run such a negative campaign and in the end it may have cost them the election,” said Thomas.
“The UWP captured the imagination of many St Lucians with its manifesto that promised substantial change in economic management and we need to give Chastanet the opportunity to implement his promises,” said Herrelle. Interestingly, no St Lucians mentioned the hullabaloo stirred up by Anthony over Mottley’s presence in St Lucia a few days before Monday’s voting. Anthony had raised the issue and seemingly implied that the Bajans were interfering in St Lucia’s affairs.
Apparently, St Lucians didn’t agree with Anthony.