I don’t think it’s fair to measure every Prime Minister of Saint Lucia with the same yardstick, for the simple reason that while each was the nation’s leader, each also faced different challenges at different times that would therefore require different measuring mechanisms.
Leaders aren’t robots similarly programmed but with different and better chips than those they lead, but humans with all the similar but different living characteristics programmed by different minds in different bodies.
Subject to similar challenges in different times and places each would have options to personally choose and the end result(s) would be same or different, unlike robots driven by artificial intelligence and chasing virtual realities.
I therefore don’t agree with those who measure Saint Lucia’s prime ministers by tabulation of national projects completed or jobs created, or how they handle crime.
There’s yet no set yardstick for accurately measuring performance by leaders without taking into account who they led and what their governments achieved collectively during each term.
Using traditional yardsticks, it gets more difficult to measure prime ministers who’ve served two or more terms as the comparison will rule-out those who serve single or alternate terms.
If a common yardstick is used to measure Prime Ministers Sir John Compton, Dr Kenny D. Anthony and Philip J. Pierre, does it totally rule out the terms of Sir Allan Louisy, Dr Vaughan Lewis, Stephenson King, Winston Cenac or Mickey Pilgrim? (And if so, by what measure?)
The most-often referenced measurement of a Prime Minister’s success is the extent to which his or her government will have delivered on its election promises, but here too, voters who elect the parliamentarians who choose them use very different yardsticks.
Competing election candidates and political analysts use more sophisticated tools to measure their performances, while citizens use personal and general instruments to measure how they feel come election time.
So, it’s easy to understand why many believed and as-many may not have when Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre said he was the one “most prepared” for the top post.
He had his reasons, but no one was really ready to say “Yea” or “Nae”, even to consider why he would have made such a bold claim.
I remember defending him by explaining (in this column) that he was prepared, unlike his predecessors, by extended terms as Deputy Leader of the ruling Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP) and Deputy Prime Minister under Prime Minister Anthony – and the position (now held by Dr Ernest Hilaire as First Deputy SLP Leader) was institutionalized under Pierre’s watch.
He’d won the Castries East seat six consecutive times since 1997, held most top Cabinet positions (in Labour Administrations until 2016) as Minster for Tourism, Commerce, Financial Services, business Development, Infrastructure, Ports, Transport, Roads – and served as the officially-designated Acting Prime Minister countless times.
Clearly, Prime Minister Anthony will have chosen his successor, if only by way of formalizing him in the post, therefore creating the conditions that would allow his Deputy to prepare and be prepared for succession – whenever or however.
When Prime Minister Anthony resigned forthwith on the night the SLP lost the 2016 General Elections under his watch, no one was ready for that sudden eventuality, but, if only by dint of learning on the job Pierre’s performance would be measured by how he took the mantle and how he ran or walked with it.
Pierre’s performance as Opposition Leader between 2016 and 2021 — without being measured against that of Dr Anthony in 2006-2011 or Chastanet’s in 2011-2016 — also prepared him for the role of Prime Minister, placing him in a seat he previously sat in next to Prime Minister Anthony (2001-2006 and 2011-2016).
Similarly, it should hold that one should try to accurately measure the results from Pierre’s performance in one term as Prime Minister against those of Sir John, Dr Anthony, Dr Lewis or Mr. King – but try telling that to the average voter at elections time.
When it comes to casting votes in the two-party electoral systems that exist in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), citizens tend to measure their choices according to how they’ve always done, or by whether they are sufficiently convinced to change.
Undecided and new voters tend to give more consideration to weighing their choices; and some even decide not to vote or to simply spoil their ballots.
In Pierre’s case in 2021 in Saint Lucia, all performance yardsticks seemed to return the same positive result: he’d led the SLP-led administration (with two trusted and experienced, independent allies in his Cabinet) sufficiently well to have been supported for another term.
Just like they’d equally measured each of the three previous revolving UWP and SLP administrations between 2006 and 2021 and returned them to office with similar (11-6) parliamentary majorities, in 2021 they completely rubbished that formula and decisively voted the Pierre-led SLP into office in 2021.
Pierre’s 2021 victory team included two former Prime Ministers and two former senior UWP Cabinet Ministers who contested and won as independents, and they held tops posts in the new administration even without joining the SLP.
Prime Minister Pierre’s performance during his first term was applauded throughout from both sides of the political aisle, quietly and loudly too by UWP supporters at all levels, as became clear by the time the December 1, 2025, elections were called one year early.
Expectedly, he led the SLP to a second term – and winning one of the UWP’s only two remaining seats.
Pierre has joined Sir John and Dr Anthony as the only three prime ministers to have been re-elected to serve second terms, so, will it be fair to compare his unfinished performance with Sir John and Dr Anthony’s legacies?
Methinks not, as it would be unfair to all-three to use the same yardstick to measure their unequal equations, if only because Pierre hasn’t completed his second term.
All that hath been said, though, it’ll be difficult, near impossible, to convince the average saint Lucian citizen and voter who voted today that the current prime minister hasn’t showered more blessings on nation and people than all his predecessors.
You don’t have to agree; to the vast majority, it’s just a fact!