It is in this spirit that I offer a gentle, non-partisan appeal to all Saint Lucians ahead of the General Elections on December 1st. 

We each have the right and indeed the duty to vote. But we also share a responsibility to reflect soberly on the broader national picture. Over the past four electoral cycles (2006, 2011, 2016, 2021), our voting patterns reveal a clear trend long recognised by the late Jamaican pollster Professor Carl Stone: Caribbean electorates often vote governments out due to frustration, rather than vote in alternative administrations based on superior plans or programmes.

Here in Saint Lucia, this pattern has produced frequent changes of government; more in rejection than in aspiration. The consequence has been abrupt policy reversals, institutional instability, stalled long-term initiatives, and a deepening of partisan division.

This cycle carries a significant cost.
It interrupts development.
It weakens institutions.
It reduces investor confidence.
And it transfers national energy away from progress and toward a perpetual resetting of the political clock.

Yet today, the data paint a very different picture of our current trajectory:

• Economic growth has returned, with the Caribbean Development Bank and IMF acknowledging sustained recovery across multiple quarters.
• Unemployment has dropped to its lowest levels in decades, down from the mid- to high-20% range of previous years to the low-teens more recently.
• Social indicators from youth employment programmes to community infrastructure have shown clear, measurable improvement.
• And importantly, national policy over the past four years has been more deliberately centred on people-focused development rather than narrow partisan, familial, or class-based interests.

Against this backdrop, there is no compelling national rationale to revert to a model of governance previously associated with heightened societal tension, public vindictiveness, divisive rhetoric, and persistent efforts, both in government and in opposition to undermine national progress through polarisation rather than unity.

Saint Lucia cannot afford a return to instability masquerading as leadership.
We cannot afford governance driven by personal ambition rather than national interest.
Nor can we afford the corrosive politics of grievance, hostility, and institutional undermining.

Leadership must build bridges, not deepen fractures.
It must elevate discourse, not drag it into the gutter.
And it must put the people and the country, not personalities or partisan calculation, first.

As we approach December 1st, may we vote with intention.
May we choose continuity where it benefits the many.
May we break the cycle of reflexive rejection.
May we resist the temptation to “reset” simply because the election calendar allows it.
And may we signal, with clarity and conviction, that Saint Lucia’s future matters more than partisan reflex or recycled negativity.

A word to the wise…

By McHale Andrew