A crisis in governance
Opposition party says Government ‘lacks democratic legitimacy’
PRESIDENT OF the main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) Godwin Friday says that “a crisis in governance”exists in the country following last Thursday’s general election, in which the Unity Labour Party (ULP) won nine of the 15 seats but not the popular vote.
Echoing words used by now Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves in 1998 – when a similar situation existed when the NDP was in office and the ULP in opposition -Friday said that the ULP has lost the moral authority to govern the country.
“There is popular outpouring of frustration and dissatisfaction with the ULP and Dr Ralph Gonsalves. The people’s desire for change was heightened during the election campaign. Change from the oppressiveness, which is being experienced as a result of the past 19 years of rule under Gonsalves and the ULP,” Friday said in a national address.
“We heard that call and will, with increased vigour and determination, work to bring about the change we need and that you voted for. Political change – that is, change in government, has been deferred, but it will not be indefinitely denied,” he said. Friday, who was elected to a fifth five-year term as the legislator for the Northern Grenadines, said that the NDP would “spare no effort to bring about the necessary economic and social improvements we offered the people during the campaign and now continue to hold out as the path to a brighter future”.
He said that the underlying condition driving the desire for change is that the Vincentian people “have been left in no doubt that the Gonsalves administration has become increasingly notorious for its subversion of constitutional government and the democratic process in our country.
LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY
“And this is compounded by blatant nepotism and cronyism and by the lack of transparency and lack of accountability in the conduct of our nation’s affairs.”
For the first time, last Thursday, Friday led the NDP into general elections and the party was defeated for a fourth consecutive time after being voted out of office in March 2001 after 17 years.
He said that the people spoke in the general elections when more electors cast ballots for the NDP than for the ULP.
“You gave the popular mandate to the NDP,” Friday said in the statement, which was broadcast on national television and radio as well as social media.“By your vote, you said clearly that you preferred the ideas, the plans, and the vision for the country laid out by the New Democratic Party,” he said.