Former Health Minister Mary Isaac has declared that current United Workers Party (UWP) leader, Allen Chastanet, will lead the party into the next general elections.
Isaac made the remarks on Wednesday night during Newsmaker Live on DBS Television.
“Allen Chastanet is our political leader, and he will remain the political leader going into the next general elections,” the former Minister told Host Timothy Poleon.
The electorate voted the UWP out of office at the July 26, 2021, general elections, which the Saint Lucia Labour Paty (SLP) won by a landslide.
The UWP managed to retain a mere two of the eleven seats it formerly held in government, including Chastanet’s Micoud South constituency.
But Mary Isaac indicated that Chastanet is the man to continue leading the party.
“That’s the only person in my mind. He is the one that we have there,” she told Newsmaker Live.
“He tendered his resignation. We rejected it, and this is the person that we want to represent us going into the next general elections,” the former Minister asserted.
“You will hear a lot of noise because that is the one man in Saint Lucia that the labour party is most afraid of, I believe. So they believe if they make enough noise and throw enough picong, the UWP supporters may start to buy into the rhetoric,” Isaac said.
She explained that the UWP is coming to grips with the fact that the party is in opposition, despite all the hard work it did in government.
According to Isaac, it was a ‘tough pill’ to swallow.
Nevertheless, she disclosed that the party is regrouping and, like any similar organisation, has its internal ‘push and pull’.
“It is a good thing,” Isaac declared.
“People are ready to serve and want to ensure that their time to serve does not pass them,” she noted.
However, the former Minister was confident it would eventually all come together.
“The UWP is on track,” she told Newsmaker Live.
Earlier this year party leader Allen Chastanet said publicly that he would support whatever leadership decision the upcoming party convention makes.
