Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says out­go­ing St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves was re­duced to win­ning just a sin­gle seat, nar­row­ly cling­ing to po­lit­i­cal sur­vival. He sug­gest­ed that this dra­mat­ic elec­toral out­come, which saw Gon­salves’ Unit­ed Labour Par­ty suf­fer a 14-1 de­feat at the hands of Dr. God­win Fri­day’s New De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, was part­ly in­flu­enced by the for­mer leader’s pub­lic crit­i­cisms of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s for­eign pol­i­cy.

“Some of those neg­a­tive com­ments about Trinidad and To­ba­go came from the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines,” Mooni­lal said. “The peo­ple pun­ished him for re­fer­ring to Trinidad and To­ba­go and for con­demn­ing the Prime Min­is­ter and her ac­tions against drug traf­fick­ers. He paid the ul­ti­mate po­lit­i­cal price.”

Mooni­lal re­marked that the for­mer gov­ern­ment had un­der­es­ti­mat­ed pub­lic sup­port for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­gion­al stance against crime. He added that oth­er Cari­com lead­ers should take note of this elec­toral les­son from St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, sig­nalling grow­ing frus­tra­tion among cit­i­zens across the Caribbean with lead­ers who op­pose col­lec­tive re­gion­al ac­tion.

His state­ment in Par­lia­ment came af­ter con­tro­ver­sy erupt­ed over re­ports that Gon­salves’ fam­i­ly owns three HDC homes in Trinidad, spark­ing a war of words be­tween Gon­salves and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Anil Roberts.

Turn­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s own record, Mooni­lal praised his gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance, high­light­ing ad­vances in trade, en­er­gy, and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“The con­duct of the gov­ern­ment has led to ad­vances in trade, en­er­gy, and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty. Noth­ing we have done has im­ped­ed our trade re­la­tions. The diplo­mat­ic com­mu­ni­ty is ex­cit­ed, and they line up at our doors,” he said.

Mooni­lal’s state­ment ap­peared aimed at re­in­forc­ing the gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to strong re­gion­al lead­er­ship and co­op­er­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in tack­ling or­ga­nized crime and en­hanc­ing diplo­mat­ic and eco­nom­ic ties. He al­so un­der­scored that Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains a key play­er with­in Cari­com, ac­tive­ly shap­ing the agen­da on se­cu­ri­ty and trade mat­ters.

Ob­servers not­ed that Mooni­lal’s com­ments—blend­ing con­grat­u­la­tions to St. Vin­cent’s new lead­er­ship with a strong de­fense of lo­cal for­eign pol­i­cy—re­flect the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s fo­cus on main­tain­ing both re­gion­al cred­i­bil­i­ty and do­mes­tic sup­port.