Unity Labour Party | |
---|---|
Leader | Ralph Gonsalves |
Founded | 16 October 1994 |
Ideology | Democratic socialism [1] Left-wing nationalism Anti-imperialism [2] Republicanism |
Political position | Left-wing |
Regional affiliation | COPPPAL (observer) [3] Foro de São Paulo (affiliate) |
International affiliation | Socialist International (1994–2014) [4] |
Seats in the House of Assembly | 9 / 15 |
The Unity Labour Party (ULP) is a democratic socialist political party in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Currently the governing party, it is led by Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. [5]
The party is an observer of COPPPAL and an affiliate of Foro de São Paulo. From 1994 to 2014, the party was a member of Socialist International. [6]
The party was formed in 1994 from the merger of the Saint Vincent Labour Party and the Movement for National Unity. [5] The parties had run as an alliance in the elections earlier that year, promising voters that they would merge after the election regardless of the result. [5] In the 1998 elections they received 54.6% of the vote, but the New Democratic Party won a majority of seats. The first leader of ULP, Sir Vincent Beache, resigned after the elections, and was succeeded by Ralph Gonsalves. However, in the 2001 general election the ULP won its first parliamentary majority, winning twelve of the fifteen seats. [7] The party won another majority in the 2005 general election. [8] The party was narrowly re-elected in the 2010 general election, winning 8 out of 15 elected seats in the House of Assembly of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the same taking place in the 2015 general elections and was re-elected in the 2020 general election, this time winning 9 out of 15 seats but lost the popular vote to the New Democratic Party. [9]
In November 2020, Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines since 2001, made history by securing the fifth consecutive victory of his Unity Labour Party (ULP) in general election. [10]
Election | Party leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Position | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1998 | Vincent Beache [11] | 28,025 | 54.6% | 7 / 15 | 4 | 2nd | Opposition |
2001 | Ralph Gonsalves | 32,925 | 56.5% | 12 / 15 | 5 | 1st | Supermajority government |
2005 | 31,848 | 55.26% | 12 / 15 | 1st | Supermajority government | ||
2010 | 32,099 | 51.11% | 8 / 15 | 4 | 1st | Majority government | |
2015 | 34,246 | 52.28% | 8 / 15 | 1st | Majority government | ||
2020 | 32,353 | 49.58% | 9 / 15 | 1 | 1st | Majority government |
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is an island country in the eastern Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies, at the southern end of the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea, where the latter meets the Atlantic Ocean.
Politics of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines takes place in the framework of a parliamentary democracy. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is an independent Commonwealth realm, with Charles III as its king, represented by a governor-general, who acts on the advice of the prime minister and the cabinet. The prime minister is the leader of the majority party of the House of Assembly, and the cabinet conducts affairs of state. The governor-general exercises ceremonial functions, but reserve powers, under the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines constitution, can be used at the governor-general's discretion.
Ralph Everard Gonsalves is a Vincentian politician. He is currently the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the leader of the Unity Labour Party (ULP).
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The House of Assembly of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is the unicameral legislature of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The Vincentian monarch and the House of Assembly constitute the Parliament of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
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Camillo Michael Gonsalves is a Vincentian politician, lawyer and diplomat. Gonsalves is the current Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Information Technology of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as well as the current representative for the constituency of East St. George.
General elections were held in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines on 15 June 1998. Although the Unity Labour Party (ULP) received a majority of the public vote, the New Democratic Party (NDP) won a majority of seats, the first time the party receiving a majority of the vote had failed to win the elections since 1966. Voter turnout was 67%.
General elections were held in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines on 28 March 2001. The Unity Labour Party (ULP), which had won the popular vote in the 1998 elections but lost to the New Democratic Party (NDP), this time won a landslide victory, taking 12 of the 15 seats, ending seventeen years of an NDP government. The NDP retained only three of its eight seats inclusive of the two Grenadines seats which had voted for the party's former leader, Sir James Mitchell, in every general election since 1966.
General elections were held in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines on 9 December 2015. The result was a victory for the Unity Labour Party, which retained its one seat majority. However, the NDP has challenged the results in two constituencies, North Windward, and Central Leeward.
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General elections were held in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines on 5 November 2020. Nomination day was 20 October 2020. The result was a victory for the Unity Labour Party, its fifth in a row; the party won nine of the fifteen seats, gaining one seat. These elections marked the first time since 1998 that the party which received the most votes did not win the most seats and the first time since 1994 that the New Democratic Party won the popular vote.
Rochelle Forde is a Saint Vincent and the Grenadines lawyer and politician who has been Speaker of the country's House of Assembly since November 2020.
Girlyn Miguel is a Vincentian educator and politician who served in the Parliament of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines from 1998 until 2015. A member of the Unity Labour Party, Miguel also served as Deputy Prime Minister from 2010 to 2015, becoming the first woman to hold the position.
Sir Vincent Beache was a politician from Saint Vincent and leader of the Saint Vincent Labour Party.