WHILE new Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness continues to keep alive speculations of a snap parliamentary poll, possibly before Christmas, the Prime Minister of St Lucia Stephenson King announced last Sunday a general election for November 28.
This surprise date means that for the first time in the history of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), two member states will be voting for new governments on the same day.
President Bharrat Jagdeo had announced on October 9 that Guyanese will be voting for a new government on Monday, November 28, where there will be a three-way electoral battle for an executive president and a 65-member National Assembly.
Guyana’s incumbent People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), which is seeking an unprecedented fifth successive five-year term, a five-month old coalition of parties known as the APNU (A Partnership for National Unity), dominated by the old People’s National Congress, and the Alliance For Change (AFC), now contesting its second national poll.
In St Lucia, the United Workers Party (UWP), whose founder-leader Sir John Compton died as prime minister shortly after the party defeated the then two-term St Lucia Labour Party (SLP) in December 2006, has been boasting of returning to state power, according to its own forecast of securing a majority of the 17 parliamentary seats at stake.
The emergence of the APNU in Guyana marks a significant departure in traditional parliamentary battles between the two dominant mass-based parties (PPP/C and PNC), and now, in contrast, a virtual ‘pick-up side’ of small parties dominated by the PNC to constitute APNU.
But in St Lucia both the SLP and UWP continue to be the major contenders for state power with the latter under the first-time leadership of Stephenson King. There are, of course other significant political differences with the opposition SLP under the leadership of former Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony, favoured by The Voice, the country’s oldest and acclaimed most widely read newspaper, giving a clear all-round lead for a Labour victory.
(Source http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/St-Lucia–Guyana-in-same-day-election_10126354)
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