Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre took aim at the Opposition during Tuesday’s sitting of Parliament, criticizing the United Workers Party’s record while reiterating his administration’s focus on job creation and economic recovery.
With pointed remarks directed at Opposition Leader Allen Chastanet, the Prime Minister dismissed suggestions that the government had mismanaged the economy.
“With his usual grand charge and threat, Mr. Speaker, disrespecting of the people of Saint Lucia,” PM Pierre said.
“The tourism industry has collapsed when, Mr. Speaker, up to today, the cost of airline tickets from Miami, from the US, up to now, you can’t get a business class ticket to go to Miami. Up to today, when we’re supposed to be in the off season. Absolutely no fact, Mr. Speaker.”
PM Pierre challenged the Opposition to account for the state of the economy when they left office in 2021.
“What did he leave? He left unemployment of nearly 43 percent for young people. He left unemployment in the country generally about 24 to 25 percent. Where is unemployment now, Mr. Speaker?” the Prime Minister asked, pressing the Opposition to explain past performance rather than attack current policy.
He also took issue with the tone of some Opposition rhetoric.
“Here’s a man who says the people of this country ought to be flogged. That’s a man who goes on public and says the people of this country ought to be flogged,” Pierre said.
He added a stinging rebuke to what he described as posturing by the Opposition leader: “And then, hypocritically, he puts some bad-fitting clothes on him, trying to be an African here. Don’t try to divert. The time is coming when you have to account to the people of Saint Lucia.”
Defending his own leadership and record, the Prime Minister reminded the House of his electoral history and appealed to voters’ judgement.
“People have served the region and the country. You can attack them, Mr. Speaker, but the time will come when the people of Saint Lucia will,” he said. “I can speak from experience, the people of Saint Lucia have elected me six times. That’s not what people tell me. That’s a fact. That’s a fact, Mr. Speaker.”
Pierre stressed that his political mandate was won through hard-fought contests rather than handed to him.
“I didn’t get mine, I fought for mine and I won it. Nobody gave me a seat. I didn’t go in any sure seat. I fought a seat that people thought I could never win. And that is my history. That’s my history,” he said.