Wickham: Opposition on backfoot after Pierre’s early election call

“Well, I was surprised.”

That was the reaction from regional pollster Peter Wickham to Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre’s decision to “ring the bell” for a general election on December 1. The election call came just days after Wickham, principal director of the Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES), suggested to St. Lucia Times that Pierre was unlikely to go to the polls so soon.

“My comment that he was not likely to call the election early was framed against the background that I thought that the major infrastructure project, which was the hospital, would be something he wanted to complete before he called the election,” Wickham said.

While the governing Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP) and the opposition United Workers Party (UWP) continue to spar over what it truly means for the St Jude Hospital to be considered “complete”, Wickham believes the Prime Minister’s decision to go to the polls nearly a year ahead of schedule, and before the hospital’s formal opening, reflects a degree of “political bravery” and may have caught the opposition off guard.

UWP leader Allen Chastanet has dismissed suggestions that his party is unprepared, insisting they’re ready for the contest. But Wickham believes the Prime Minister’s decision to call an early election reflects a calculated assessment of political advantage.

“He sees himself to have an advantage in terms of the current position,” the pollster explained, “and also that the opposition is at a disadvantage.”

In his view, the timing disrupts the usual rhythm of opposition regrouping: “Generally speaking, it’s a lot easier for a leader to say, ‘You know what, we have a year more to relax and prepare ourselves’.”

Though Wickham sees the early election as a strategic play by Pierre, he was quick to note that such ploys don’t always favour the incumbent. When asked whether the move carries risk, he pointed to broader regional patterns.

“If you look at the history in the Caribbean, generally speaking, elections are called early when a government collapses,” Wickham said. “Or alternatively, you have a reverse situation where you believe that the local circumstances are enough to suggest that you have an advantage. Clearly, the SLP government has not collapsed. So the Prime Minister believes himself to be in an advantageous position.”  

The decision sets the stage for a high-stakes political test. No party has managed consecutive terms in over two decades; the last was Dr Kenny Anthony, who led the Saint Lucia Labour Party to back-to-back victories in 1997 and 2001.

Wickham noted that, based on the scale of Philip J. Pierre’s 2021 victory, the Prime Minister may be better positioned than previous incumbents seeking a second term.

“His batting wicket is far better prepared in terms of a possible second term,” he said.

“When you add to that the fact that he’s calling an early election, which means that he is playing strategically… My feeling is that Saint Lucians are hankering back to a time when there was stability, where you would have a government for two terms. Across the region, that seems to be the preferred model.”

That “better batting wicket”, as Wickham described it, came at the expense of the United Workers Party, which suffered a crushing defeat at the 2021 polls. The loss saw former party loyalists crossing the floor and ex-candidates openly criticising Allen Chastanet’s leadership. Despite that turbulence, the UWP has, in just four years, managed to rebuild and is now presenting a full slate of 17 candidates, 12 of whom are new faces.

Wickham acknowledged the scale of that effort, crediting Chastanet for making bold changes within the party.

“Anytime you change a candidate, that can be one of the most destabilising factors. I give former Prime Minister Chastanet the credit for identifying the fact that he needed to change some candidates and he needed to change some faces and he needed to put the UWP on a fresh footing,” he said.

However, Wickham maintains that the UWP still faces an uphill battle.

“It’s difficult not to see the UWP as being on the back foot,” he noted, pointing out that the high number of new candidates means less time to build familiarity with voters, a key disadvantage when facing an incumbent.

“You’re fighting against a political machine that’s in office, that has people on the ground and has a lot of very, very familiar faces that are, you know, that you can rely on,” Wickham added.

Given his recent misfire on the timing of the election call, Wickham was a bit more cautious when asked to forecast the outcome of the upcoming vote.

“I think it’s a bit too early for that. It’s a short campaign, so I think in 21 days we’ll know one way or the other and I’m happy to sit back and wait to see how things go. So that’s going to be an interesting one,” he said.