July 27, 2021
As it stands now the incumbent party in St Lucia has bit the dust. They are gone. The United Workers Party has been swept out of power, just like that. Gone in a stunning election defeat that only saw them win two seats to the now government St Lucia Labour Party’s 13. They even lost two seats to independent candidates.
This continues on a trend where Caribbean elections have been swinging hard one way. In The Bahamas in 2017 the then governing Progressive Liberal Party lost all but four seats and the now governing Free National Movement government picked won 34 seats in a route where the former prime minister even lost his seat, a seat he held since the late 70’s.
In Grenada, Dr Keith Mitchell of the New National Party won a second straight landslide in a row in 2018 after having beaten the governing National Democratic Congress in 2013 by a landslide winning all of the seats.
Even in Barbados the Barbados Labour Party led by Mia Mottley sent the Democratic Labour Party packing in 2018 winning all of the seats, winning all 30 seats in a historic election landslide and also won by the largest margin.
Also I Turks and Caicos one time premier Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson got the boot in February, 2021, with her losing her seat as well and oddly, the only member of her party and cabinet winning a seat was the beleaguered minister for health. So as to leave no room for doubt it was not just about the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was a serious indictment against Cartwright-Robinson.
Now some have said that these landslides really aren’t landslides, but it is due to the fact that there are too few seats to vie for and also for the fact that we have a first past the post electoral process where you have to vote for the entire ticket to ensure the party you want actually wins.
Whatever it is it is looking suspicious because I have never seen or read about this many election landslides in the region at once. If you believe it is haphazard then I have a winning lottery ticket to sell you.
There is a thread in there somewhere we need to find and I will continue to reach out to figure this out.