KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC—Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has been re-elected leader of the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP), which says it will field new candidates in at least four of the 15 constituencies in the next general elections, widely expected within the next year, ahead of the February 2026 constitutional deadline.
Gonsalves told the party’s 26th annual convention that two legislators have indicated their intention to retire from politics, while a candidate who has lost five times also wants to quit.
He said that Montgomery Daniel, the North Windward representative and Deputy Prime Minister, and Frederick Stephenson, the ULP deputy leader and South Windward representative, are retiring from politics.
ULP’s chairman, Edwin Snagg, has failed to win the Southern Grenadines since 2001 and wants to avoid making another attempt.
The party will likely field Senator Keisal Peters in West Kingstown, the main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) has held since 2010.
“We have to have candidates selected properly. Some persons who run last time may not run next time. Gommery, for instance, has already said he is retiring, and we have to thank him for his tremendous service,” Gonsalves said, referring to the North Winward MP.
“Montgomery has kept North Windward safe thus far, and grace will lead us home,” Gonsalves said, hinting that Grace Walters, whom the ULP selected in March 2023, will be its North Windward candidate.
“Well, Cummings in West Kingstown ain’t have nothing to say against Keisal other than try to run the down personally,” he said, referring to Peters, who made history as the country’s first female minister of foreign affairs when she was appointed to the post in August 2022, after two years as the junior minister.
However, in July 2024, she was relieved of the foreign ministry portfolio and reassigned to a national mobilization.
‘Well, they began by saying, remember they start to say she is using skin bleach, Gonsalves said, adding, “What a beautiful black woman nuh. She looks like she does use bleach? And Cummings say she’s a fat lady. Well, Cummings when you get licks, you will say the fat lady sings”.
On September 28, Cummings told an NDP campaign event that “a fat lady” questions constituents seeking help to repair their damaged homes about their political allegiance. He did not identify the “fat lady,” but last month, Gonsalves said that the opposition MP was referring to Peters.
“This woman comes from the bowels of the working class, the bowels of the working class. Her father used to work at the port,” Gonsalves told the convention, adding that Peters had not “just come by with labor so.”
He spoke of Peters’s development under successive ULP administrations, adding that she also benefited from a university education under the ULP.
“She has done magnificently, and Cummings is going crazier than ever.”
In 2010, on his second attempt to win West Kingstown, Cummings defeated the ULP’s Michelle Fife and held on to the seat amidst challenges by Deborah Charles in 2015 and 2020.
Meanwhile, Gonsalves said that the ULP was considering its alternatives in South Windward, as Stephenson, who is into his third five-year term as MP, has said he is not running anymore.
“And we have one or two persons in mind to take over from Snaggy in the Southern Grenadines because Snaggy says he wants to rest from that,” Gonsalves said.
“And I’m warning all of those NDP candidates in Kingstown. We are coming at every single one of you. We are coming to Leacock. We coming at Cummings, and we coming at [Fitz] Bramble,” he said. The NDP has held East Kingstown since 1984 and Central and West Kingstown since 2010.
Gonsalves said that the performance of the ULP’s Carlos Williams, after the passage of Hurricane Beryl on July 1, “will keep (Opposition Leader Dr. Godwin) Friday more at home.” Williams failed in his 2020 bid to unseat the NDP leader in the North Grenadines, which he has represented since 2001.
“We are going to keep the nine that we have, and we’re going to add more to those nine come election 2025,” Gonsalves said.
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