Voters rejected ULP challengers twice over, court hears in citizenship dispute

A Kingstown court heard Wednesday that voters in St Vincent and the Grenadines emphatically backed two winning candidates despite pre-election warnings from their rivals that ballots for those men would be wasted.

Senior Counsel Anand Ramlogan, speaking outside court after closing arguments, said the outcome amounted to a "double rejection" of the two defeated contenders. Ramlogan acts for Prime Minister Godwin Friday and Minister of Foreign Affairs Dwight Fitzgerald Bramble, who secured the Northern Grenadines and East Kingstown seats respectively in November's general election.

Augustus Carlos Williams and Luke Browne, both from the Unity Labour Party, filed court petitions seeking to overturn those results. They contend that Friday and Bramble are constitutionally barred from holding office because they possess Canadian citizenship. The petitioners also claim they distributed notices before the election cautioning voters that supporting the two men would amount to throwing away their votes.

Ramlogan told iWitness News that the strategy backfired spectacularly. Friday garnered more than four times the votes Williams received, he noted. "It's like a double whammy. It's a double rejection," Ramlogan said.

The New Democratic Party swept 14 of 15 parliamentary seats in the election, marking the end of nearly 25 years of ULP governance.

Ramlogan characterised the legal challenge as fundamentally undemocratic. He described the petitioners' position as seeking a "technical knockout" after voters had clearly spoken. "I'm warning you not to vote for someone. You still go and you wouldn't give me your vote. You vote for the same person, and this person is trying, by a technical knockout, as it were, to say, 'Well, look, give me the seat,'" he said.

The case turns on whether Section 26 of the Constitution bars those holding Canadian citizenship from candidacy, or whether Section 25 permits Commonwealth citizens to stand for election.

Ramlogan also noted the case's broader significance for St Vincent and the Grenadines' standing within the Commonwealth. He pointed to Friday's recent attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, where he said the Prime Minister received a warm reception and demonstrated the respect the nation commands internationally.