Ruling party victory in St. Vincent and Grenadines (Chavez ally)

[Alamuti Lotus]

Source: AP

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, who has led the Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines into an alliance with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, won a narrow victory in parliamentary elecitons Monday to keep his party in power for another five years.

His United Labour Party won just eight seats, down from 12 in the previous Parliament. The New Democratic Party increased its share to seven seats from three.

Opposition parties had hoped the islands' economic hardships would bring a change in government, although recent opinion polls gave the edge to Gonsalves and his party.

Voters across the two islands waited in long lines to determine as Gonsalves predicted he would win a third term.

The prime minister said he is best suited to lead the country of 120,000 people as it tries to rebound from the global economic slump. The 64-year-old leader touts a record of poverty reduction and improved access to education while forging deeper ties with international partners such as Venezuela and Cuba to survive a tighter budget.

Under his leadership, St. Vincent was accepted last year as a member of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Nations of Our America, a leftist bloc that includes Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Dominica, and Antigua and Barbuda. Chavez assembled the bloc of allies in Latin America and the Caribbean to counter U.S. influence in the region.

St. Vincent has also forged a closer relationship with Iran, which sent $7 million in aid for several local development projects in 2008.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101214/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_st_vincent_elections

[Peace Patriot]

1. Thanks for posting! Pretty important election, though it's a tiny country.

"Opposition parties had hoped the islands' economic hardships would bring a change in government..."--from the OP

Yeah, we know how rightwingers just love "economic hardships" and how welcome "economic hardships" are to this species of pond scum, especially if "economic hardships" can be capitalized upon to put rightwingers back in power to, um, inflict much more "economic hardship" on others to make them and their cronies yet richer.

I think we're going to be hearing lines like this a lot, as the Bushwhack-induced Depression gets twisted around to be, somehow, magically, in our "Alice in Wonderland" mad corpo-fascist media world, blamed on leftists.

All I can say is Venezuela and the Cubans have the right idea--pull together, brothers and sisters, create barter and other forms of fair trade amongst ourselves, each helping the other to mitigate weaknesses and use strengths for the greatest good, the have's helping the have-not's, and victim aiding victim, in solidarity with the good people around us and in neighboring lands and other parts of the world. Stop believing "each human for himself." It ain't working. It was never real. Gotta find the path to being the best that humans can be, not the worst. Cooperation, respect and love, not war, cruelty and greed.

I'm so glad Ralph Gonsalves won. He's a good man. And I know HOW HARD IT IS for the poor and disenfranchised to get organized, get people educated on the issues and get out the vote. Applause to those who got him elected! Applause to those who kept him elected! And much applause to the ALBA countries!

:bounce: :applause: :grouphug: :applause: :bounce: