Latinnews Archive


Latin American Weekly Report - 14 December 1979


EASTERN CARIBBEAN: Cato holds the line for Washington


Aided by remnants of the popular euphoria over independence from Britain barely six weeks earlier, by careful 'organisation' of the registration of new young voters, and by a divided opposition, prime minister Milton Cato held the line against the left-wing advance in the Eastern Caribbean last week, by getting himself re-elected for another five-year term.

The 64-year-old Cato, who last March joined with the then St Lucia prime minister, John Compton, in calling on Britain to send troops to crush the leftwing coup in neighbouring Grenada, swept the board with 11 of the 13 seats in parliament, one more than in the last general election in 1974. After his victory, he praised St Vincent's 'stability', and promised to attract more foreign investors, but the vote sufficiently altered the island's traditional political patterns to give him notice that this formula will not be enough in future.


His St. Vincent Labour Party (SVLP) dropped nearly 16 per cent of its share of the vote, to 53.5 per cent (17,962 votes), while the People's Political Party (PPP), led by his long-time rival, former premier Ebenezer Joshua, was virtually anninilated, getting only 2.4 per cent (796 votes). Joshua, 72, one of the last of the Anglo-Caribbean's older generation of charisrnatic politicians, who fought and won self-rule from Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, lost his seat after 28 years. His wife Ivy, the titular leader of the opposition in parliament, was also defeated.

The two new opposition seats went instead to the centrist New Democratic Party (NDP), led by former premier James Mitchell, who gained wide respect in the region during his 1972-74 premiership (LA IX, 1). The party got nearly 30 per cent (9,864 votes), but its success was rnarred by the defeat of Mitchell himself.

More significant, however, was; the 14.4 per cent (4,829 votes) scored by the three-party 'new left' coalition, the United People's Movement, whose driving force is marxist univerisity lecturer Ralph Gonsalves. In 1974, the left could only get 0.8 per cent of the vote.

Although the St Vincent 'domino' has not fallen, to Washington's relief, the long monopoly of the political scene by the neo-colonial SVLP and the PPP has now been broken. The USA, France and Britain may now see fit to step up aid to the island as a precaution, under the convenient guise of helping recovery from last April's Soufriere volcano disaster. Conservative Trinidad is also likely to continue its efforts, using its oil wealth, to bring St. Vincent further into the informal Eastern Caribbean conservative alliance which it has formed with Barbados, to face the supposed Cuban threat from Grenada.

* The day after Cato's victory was announced, a group of Rastafarians seized control of Union Island, one of the Grenadine islands administered by St. Vincent. The revolt was quickly crushed by a planeload of St Vincent police, who arrested 28 of the rebels. Their alleged leader, Rasta Bomba (Lennox Charles) was reported to have escaped to nearby Carriacou, a dependency of Grenada.


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