KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC—Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has defended the selection of Attorney General Grenville Williams as a candidate for the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP) in the upcoming general election. He also maintains that Dr. Kishore Shallow, a candidate for the main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP), should not continue to lead Cricket West Indies (CWI).
Over the last weekend, the ULP nominated Williams, who has been Attorney General since 2022, as its candidate for the South Leeward constituency in the next general elections, widely expected to be held in November this year.
Last September, the NDP named Shallow its candidate for the North Leeward seat.
Williams was nominated as a candidate less than one week after Prime Minister Gonsalves launched yet another attack on Shallow since the announcement of his candidacy.
Gonsalves said St. Vincent and the Grenadines had been promised that it would host games in the West Indies-Australia series this year and suggested that domestic politics had reversibly retracted that alleged promise.
However, Shallow dismissed those suggestions, saying that inadequate hotel accommodation options had worked against the country, adding that St. Vincent and the Grenadines had been awarded other games this year and in 2026.
Speaking on a radio program here on Sunday, Prime Minister Gonsalves was asked whether he should also have no problem with Williams being announced as a candidate, as he has complained regarding Shallow.
“No. The Attorney General can be announced as a candidate,” Gonsalves said, noting that Parliament recently passed legislation allowing public servants to be granted leave to contest local or national elections and to return to their posts if unsuccessful.
Gonsalves said that under this law, Williams and Kaschaka Cupid, the deputy comptroller of inland revenue and opposition candidate, will be able to get leave to campaign.
“So, obviously, the selection of the candidates can’t be done only in that narrow window. It has to be done sometime before,” Gonsalves said, adding that since Independence in 1979, it has only been since his government came to office in 2001 that there has not been a political attorney general.
“Political attorneys general have had difficulties, like to say, an elected politician or somebody named as a senator who is a political attorney general.
“… that’s why we have sought under the ULP to have public service attorneys general, not political attorneys general,” Gonsalves said, noting that Williams was preceded by several other public service attorneys general under his government.
Gonsalves, however, noted that his government does not allow its attorney general to speak in Parliament “though, in other countries, we have public service attorneys general, as was the practice in the colonial days, they allowed them to speak in Parliament.”
Asked about a public service attorney general campaigning for an election while holding his post, the prime minister said, “There’s nothing wrong with that.
“The difference with West Indies cricket is this: West Indies cricket unifies across the region. In that regard, I put the cricket West Indies president in a unifying position like the Secretary General of CARICOM, the OECS Director General, the President of the CDB, or the University’s Vice-Chancellor.
“These are unifying institutions among disparate islands, and the suspicion would always arise that such a person will act in a manner that would be disuniting. And that is where the suspicion has arisen about cricket West Indies not allocating games, having given the assurance for the Australia T20 tournament against West Indies, no games have been assigned to the St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”
Gonsalves said he was not “not suggesting at all that there’s any perfidy on the part of the President of cricket, West Indies.
“I’m saying that a natural suspicion will arise. And I’m not begrudging our sister territories, which have had games; I’m not doing that. I’m making a separate point.”
He said he had raised the point with some CARICOM leaders, adding, “and I happen to know that [Guyana President] Irfaan Ali had raised it at the meeting with CARICOM and Cricket West Indies.
“I’ve been so advised. I wasn’t there… and I’m subject to correction. I think (Barbados Prime Minister) Mia Mottley raised it formally or expressed it informally- her concern.
“And the overwhelming majority of people in the Caribbean, informed people, say that what Ralph is saying in this regard makes sense,” Gonsalves said.
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