St. Vincent’s PM Gonsalves to assume CARICOM chairmanship on Wednesday

Prime Minister of the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, is set to assume the chairmanship of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) this Wednesday, as the current Chairman, Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, prepares to step down from the position.

According to the rotation schedule prepared and shared by CARICOM, PM Gonsalves will assume the CARICOM chairmanship for six months, after which the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago will assume the title.
After bearing witness to the Guyana’s electoral impasse, the incoming CARICOM Chair, earlier this month, sternly expressed that he refuses to “stand idly by and watch the results of the recount be set aside, so the loser of the elections must take his licks like a man.”

After he made this and other comments on a radio show, NBC Radio – “Your Morning Cup” in his home country, the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition and its leading constituent, the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) both responded in condemnation, calling his comments prejudicial. The PNCR, in particular said that unless current CARICOM Chair Mia Mottley, makes a statement, distancing the regional union from Gonsalves’ statement, it would be viewed as an attempt by CARICOM to scuttle the electoral process.

APNU+AFC campaign manager Joseph Harmon was quick to respond to Gonsalves utterances, as he stated that the governing Coalition found it “strange and alarming” that he would make statements of this nature which closely resembles that of the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C). Harmon had said Gonsalves had “taken a public position that is prejudicial to the integrity and eventual outcome of the ongoing national recount of the March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections.”

Against this, Owen Arthur, the former Prime Minister of Barbados, came to the Gonsalves’ defence.
Arthur advocated for the context in which Gonsalves spoke, while highlighting the instruments of governance by which the CARICOM member states are bound.

“Your leader, [President David Granger] sits in the council with other Caribbean leaders and sometimes they exchange sharp views, sometimes in public. It can’t be that someone at the level of Mr. Harmon thinks that he has the authority to unleash the kind of vitriolic attack on Caribbean leaders. Harmon is not a Caribbean leader, and your leader should tell Mr. Harmon that he is out of order and he is out of place,” Owen Arthur stated.