By Staff Writer
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, Nov 25, CMC – Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves says at least eight lawyers and activists from Trinidad and Tobago have arrived here to campaign for the opposition ahead of Thursday’s general election in which his ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP) is seeking an unprecedented sixth consecutive term in office.
“I have in my hand here the printout of eight lawyers, activists from Trinidad,” Gonsalves told a ULP youth rally, saying that the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) had brought them “here to work on election day, and between now and election day”.
Gonsalves,79, said he would be reading out the names of those Trinidadians as well as put on line their photographs “so that the people will see those who have come in from Trinidad who want to be engaged in a process to see if they can interfere and to try, in some way, to distort and undermine our electoral democracy….”
He told the rally that the eight “persons are Trinidadians coming to interfere with our electoral process.
“The first thing I say, lawyers, you come here to work, you either have to get a work permit or you have to have a CARICOM skills national certificate, which is approved by the government, the issuance of which is approved by the government of St. Vincent Grenadines.
“So if you come here and do any work for the NDP, you are working here illegally, that is a criminal offense,” he said, noting that while he has done nothing but to welcome them with “Labour love,” they should also “follow our rules and you can’t go inside of a polling station because you’re not a Vincentian, to come to interfere with our process.
“And you can’t come around our polling stations to say that you’re going to do this or do that. St. Vincent and the Grenadines is not Tunapuna, is not Curepe, is not Penal, is not San Fernando, is not Mauva, it is not Lavantille.”
Gonsalves, who later read out the names of the Trinidadians, said that “they think we win elections by trying to block roads from people coming to a rally or trying to see if they can go and get a principled comrade like (Jamaican artiste) Masicka not perform for us?
“That kind of low-down worthlessness on the part of the NDP is an example of how they have behaved with bad-mindedness against everything progressive and good that this government has tried to do since 2001.
“So I serve notice on all those who have come whose names I’ve just called. If you work in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, you have to have either a work permit or a CARICOM skills national.”
Gonsalves said that had the foreign workers come from Barbados, Dominica, or Belize, he would not have had a problem given that the four Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries recently signed and completed the freedom of movement aspect of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) that allows for the free movement of goods, skills, labour and services across the region.
“ Well, you could have come and worked without a work permit, and you could have come and walked without a CARICOM skills National Certificate. I’m telling you the law, you know. You are lawyers, you should know it”.
Gonsalves told the rally he is aware that the NDP would defend the arrival of the Trinidadians by saying “they ain’t coming to work, they come to help.
“Well, you know — you’re coming to help, the fact that you give free service doesn’t mean you ain’t working, you know, according to the law of this country, they put you up in a hotel. They gotta give food to eat. They had to provide transport. All that is part of your remuneration for coming to St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”
Gonsalves said that apart from the law, “I’m saying to them politically, their involvement here is unacceptable.
“And those who have received them, and those in Trinidad who send them, I am warning them that they cannot function in St. Vincent and the Grenadines without all the legal requisites complied with, and also they will have to deal with the supervisor of elections, who, no doubt, will give instructions under the law.”
Gonsalves said that he was grateful to the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who said recently that her United National Congress (UNC) had not sanctioned anyone from the party or the country to participate in the campaign for the general elections in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the December 1 poll in St. Lucia.
“… the prime minister said, and I believe her, she said she ain’t mandating anybody to go anywhere to St. Lucia or St. Vincent. She says she ain’t interfering in anybody else’s election. And I thank her for saying that, and I believe her, because I think she’s an honest woman. I believe in her honesty.
“But I don’t know why UNC financiers send this other lot to come to St. Vincent because they want cheap land, and they want the port, and they want a hospital where they want privatised,” he said, adding that the UNC financiers want to “buy this election”.
In the last general election, the ULP won nine of the 15 seats in the Parliament.
CMC/kc/ir/2025