This weekend marks the start of Emancipation Month and observance of the 5th Anniversary of the overwhelming victory in the 2021 General Elections by an alliance led by the ruling St. Lucia Labour Party (SLP).
But today (Saturday) marks one week since the deadly close-to-midnight Anse Cochon marine accident on the island’s West Coast that took lives, broke limbs and left bodies missing.
Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre, having earlier commiserated with the Government and people of Guyana following a major marine incident at about the same time last Saturday involving a ferry vessel that also resulted in many rescued but also took lives and left many missing, reassured Saint Lucians that while the Police and Coast Guard investigations continue, his administration will not sit on its hands or laurels.
PM Pierre announced a Commission of Inquiry will soon be appointed, comprising professional and technical persons and experts, to study the details and make recommendations, particularly regarding Marine Safety.
As per usual, the PM seemed and sounded more-interested in the welfare of the families an relatives affected by the July 18 tragedy, which has seen Search & Rescue missions transform into Search & Recovery, than in a major anniversary this weekend that has taken a back-seat to his concerns for the countless relatives of the victims of the Saturday Night accident-at-sea.
But, as history and calendar dates go, tomorrow (Sunday, July 26), also marks five years since the SLP’s sound whipping of the then-ruling United Workers Party (UWP) in an election result that signalled Saint Lucians badly wanted change – and voted for it, effectively locking an unprecedented three-term revolving-door experience that saw the two major parties each elected with similar and rotating 11-6 margins after elections in 2006, 2011 and 2016.
One often posits that while most saint Lucian political observers and analysts might have resigned to accept that unique government-by-rotation experience as ‘one of those things’.
But it’s not easy to dismiss unprecedented election results like these, especially when the electorate doesn’t decide before and election to return similar results three consecutive times.
This isn’t known to have happened anywhere else – making it a political development worth analysing and studying further by researchers interested in pursuing interesting historical developments like this – and the 1795 Saint Lucia Revolution that abolished Slavery for one year before the British and French – who’d fight 14 wars for the island – combined forces in a lengthy battle before the Grand Ole Duke of York could overcome them at the top of the hill at Morne Fortune.
Here too, selective history records that the first of the Great Castries Fires was in 1796, when the invading forces deliberately blew-up a battery in town that set it alight, thus forcing citizens to rush to the Top-o-the-Morne to plead with the revolutionaries to surrender – which they eventually did, only to be deported to England in 1796 on a vessel named ‘London’ that sank off the coast of Devon.
Also worthy of study is the way Saint Lucia’s electorate – yet-again — messaged its approval of the Pierre-led administration it established after its mammoth 2021 endorsement, with yet-another major victory on December 1, 2025, adding an extra seat to that given the SLP five years earlier.
The 2025 victory led to a second term now in its 7th month and from all appearances and sounds, looks like Saint Lucians feel they couldn’t have had a better government, especially in current international and regional circumstances.
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is also a prime beneficiary of that manifested wisdom of the saint Lucian electorate, with fate deciding that PM Pierre would assume Chairmanship of the regional grouping on and at its 51st Summit that he and Saint Lucia hosted July 5-8, to resounding regional applause.
At CARICOM’s helm for a six-month term, Pierre has dedicated himself to ‘bringing CARICOM closer to the people’ and encouraging fellow heads of Government to speak to each other more regularly between summits and conferences.
The saint Lucia PM is also basking in silent satisfaction with much positive feedback about the CARICOM Reparations Forum held on July 6 and organized by the island’s National Reparations Committee (NRC) in cooperation with the CARICOM Secretariat and the Ministry of Foreign affairs.
PM Pierre, in his first five years in office, has won the admiration of citizens at home and abroad for the way he’s been able to headband the nation’s finances in ways that give the false impression that he actually breeds and milks cash cows in his Entrepot backyard.
His ability to find the finances to pay more to make people less unhappy, to provide additional services while reducing taxes and cancelling debts has drawn the attention of many of his peers who admire his quiet ability to meet the challenges CARICOM Chairpersons face.
Without fanfare, Trinidad & Tobago’s problematic relationship with CARICOM over the reappointment of Secretary general Dr. Carla Barnett has been referred to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) – whose findings or decisions will hardly be challenged by the parties involved, in what’s a sure win-win solution.
Finally, this weekend also marks the start of the fourth consecutive Emancipation Month launched by the Pierre administration on August 1, 2021.
All-in-all, Saint Lucians this weekend are recovering from Carnival and readying for another month of positive cultural vibes during this year’s Emancipation Month events being organized by the Cultural Development Foundation (CDF) and which was launched yesterday at Serenity Park in Castries and will go into full blast as of next Saturday, August 1.
Until then, the SLP and the Government of Saint Lucia will share mixed moods this weekend – entering another month of revelry in the dark shadow of the recent tragedy that will soon be the subject of a Commission of Inquiry into what’s easily the island’s worst marine tragedy since two ships were torpedoed in the Castries Harbour by German Nazi submarines during World War II.