ST. VINCENT-PM defends ULP’s decision to keep billboards repeatedly burnt

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC—Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves is defending the ruling Unity Labour Party’s (ULP) decision not to remove two billboards in the capital promoting him and his party. The billboards, which were erected years ago, have been set on fire twice.

One of the billboards displays a photo of Gonsalves and his self-styled “Five Star General” and “World Boss” slogans, while the other displays photos of the prime minister, his son, Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves, and Agriculture Minister Saboto Caesar.

The billboard with the trio displays the slogan “To continue the transformation.”

Speaking on a radio program here, Gonsalves said, “The facts are these: every billboard which the ULP has put up has been put up with the permission of the planning authorities, and it is in accordance with the planning authorities.

He said that the billboards are on private property and that “there is no law, or no sensibility connected to civilization, or civilized life and living to say you can’t have billboards up after elections.

“In the United States, the election campaign is a continuous one. You see the billboards all over the country,” he said, noting that in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the Representation of the People’s Act states that “buntings and images and the like” must not be displayed on election day.

“And what we do on Election Day is—and where they are near a polling station—we certainly cover them. That polling station, which is opposite where those billboards are, on election morning, they’re covered,” he said.

“Anybody who has any memory will remember that. So, I want to state these particular facts,” Gonsalves said, adding that he also wanted to state “other facts.”

“While you’re quite correct that there is no evidence that anybody connected with the (main opposition) New Democratic Party (NDP) burnt the billboards, you can’t say that they hired somebody to do it, or anybody supporting them did it on their own accord, or with the approval of the new Democratic Party. Certainly, nobody in the ULP will burn their billboards.

“Nobody who supports the ULP will burn their billboards. I’m not saying that anybody who supports the NDP did the burning. But I’m stating what we can reasonably present as facts and evidence,” Gonsalves said, noting that it is the second time that the billboards have been burnt.

He said the first occasion occurred on April 8, following the ULP rally at Arnos Vale to celebrate its 23rd anniversary in office.

“So there may well be some coincidence, or there may be none,” Gonsalves said, adding that reasonable persons can draw their own conclusions.

He said there are “several other facts,” adding that he was struck in the head and injured while on his way to Parliament two years ago.

“To the best of my knowledge, there was no condemnation of that fact. Further fact: after I got my head buss, there were drummers into the night in front of the market, ‘De World Boss get a buss head, he shudda dead.’

“I didn’t hear condemnation of that. I heard about the majesty and the authenticity of drumming and its African connectedness, as though the solemnity and virtue of drumming can be misused and abused in the manner it was on that particular occasion.”

Gonsalves said for two or three years after the 2015 general elections, the then Supervisor of Elections, Sylvia Findlay-Scrubb, “an upstanding woman, was harassed, cursed, verbally abused.

“She was laid siege for three years plus, continuously, by an organization associated with the New Democratic Party, and supported at the time there, intermittently, over those three years by people from the leadership of the New Democratic Party.

“So, I just want to state certain basic facts and leave those for the consideration of reasonable people.”

“World Boss” is the nickname used by Jamaica artiste Vybz Kartel, who is awaiting a decision by the Jamaica Court of Appeal on whether he should be retried for murder after the London-based Privy Council overturned his conviction.

Gonsalves rejected the allegation that because “World Boss” is associated with someone charged with a severe crime, anything associated with the term indicates that the person it refers to “is somebody involved in criminal activity.”

The prime minister said this was the suggestion by a caller to the program, who did not condone the burning of the billboards but “sets about to offer a justification that somehow people are living under a government where they’re so frustrated, that they will take their frustration out to burn the billboards in frustration…

“So that attempted clever verbal gymnastics really wouldn’t wash it. And I hope this learned gentleman would reflect on some of the things he said earlier this morning,” Gonsalves said.