KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – Opposition Leader Dr. Ralph Gonsalves says the two petitions filed in the High Court challenging the nomination of Prime Minister Dr. Godwin Friday and his Foreign Affairs Minister, Dwight Fitzgerald Bramble, as candidates for the November 27 general elections last year, are “frivolous”.
Following the first case management last Thursday, Prime Minister Friday, who led his New Democratic Party (NDP) to a convincing 14-1 drubbing of Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party (ULP) and ending 25 years in opposition, told reporters that the matter was taking up public and court’s time as well as resources.
“The people elected me to do their business, I’m spending two hours in the court here answering a frivolous application,” Friday said.
But Gonsalves, speaking on his weekly radio programme, said the prime minister “was mouthing the word frivolous, but he knows it’s not frivolous…
“He knows that this is a serious matter to be addressed,” Gonsalves said, referring to the 2015 general elections in which the NDP, with Friday as a vice-president, filed petitions and held protests accusing the ULP of stealing the elections.
“They had no case and the case crumbled, but they dragged it on,” Gonsalves said, adding that the NDP also organised a group known then as the “Frontline”, tasked with harassing the then Supervisor of Elections, Sylvia Findlay-Scubb, daily.
“The woman was verbally abused, words were thrown at her daily,” Gonsalves said, accusing Friday and the NDP of giving the country a bad reputation with the allegation that the 2015 general elections were not free and fair, which kept potential investments out.
“People do not want to come to a place that reeks of political instability. That is what we had to endure for five years. So, don’t get amnesia on Friday. Don’t forget what people like yourself instigated and supported for five years.
“The elections were held in 2020 with the notice of appeal, but they did nothing further but keep the fiction alive that they had an appeal before the court,” Gonsalves told radio listeners.
Gonsalves said that the ULP has no intention of dragging out the current petition, and that the petitioners have advised him they are moving expeditiously to have the matter dealt with, and that the lawyers have been so instructed.
“And we will have a determination not too long from now, first at the High Court and then whichever side loses, will go to the Court of Appeal, and whatever the Court of Appeal says, that will be it,” Gonsalves said.
Lawyers for the parties in the election petition matter said they were looking forward to the matter being heard.
Former Trinidad and Tobago attorney general, Anand Ramlogan SC, who is leading a team representing Friday and Bramble, described the case management hearing as “an interesting, if not amusing experience.
“The mandate given to the newly elected prime minister is overwhelming, and this is an attempt by the petitioners to effect change, other than by the democratic process,” he said.
But former Trinidad and Tobago prime minister Stuart Young, who is leading the attorneys representing the petitioners, told reporters that the court’s verdict on the issue is very important.
“Well, this matter for Vincentians is a serious matter, and what is being determined by the court really is an interpretation of your constitutional provisions and the qualification, or the disqualification to stand as a candidate for elections.
“So it’s quite an important provision that is finally going to be determined by the court,” Young said, adding that the judge has set “a tight time frame and timeline” that will see the trial taking place on July 28 to 30.
The ULP’s Northern Grenadines candidate in the November 2025 polls, Augustus Carlos Williams, is challenging the nomination of Friday, as well as the actions of the returning officer, Devon Ollivierre, and the Supervisor of Elections, Dora James.
As is the case with these types of matters, the attorney general is also a respondent.
In the second matter, Luke Browne is challenging Bramble’s nomination and the action of the returning officer, Jacqueline Browne, the supervisor of elections, and the attorney general in that regard.
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