Ralph: 25 Years of Failure and Betrayal of the Poor – A Contributor’s Opinion

Ralph, It’s Time to Go

I’ll say it plainly: Ralph, shut up. Please—just stop.

For too long, you have sold the Vincentian public one pipe dream after another. At this point, your words feel less like leadership and more like a desperate attempt to preserve what will soon be a quickly forgotten, laughable legacy. It is painfully clear that you are no longer fighting for the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines; you are fighting for yourself, your family, and your closest allies.

Under your failed tenure as prime minister, the country is at a standstill. You borrow and borrow, throwing up new buildings as if concrete and steel alone can fool us into re-electing you. You seem to believe that if something looks “modern” on a brochure, it counts as progress—never mind whether the people inside those buildings can afford food, electricity, or medicine.

Fifteen years ago, you were a respected statesman. Even I looked up to you. Today, you behave like a washed-up has-been, clinging to slogans and theatrics instead of delivering real solutions.

A “Five-Star General” in a Two-Star Reality

You pound your chest and call yourself a “five-star general, soon to be six-star.” Before you promote yourself again, take a good look at the country you are actually leading:

• SVG’s payroll taxes—some of the highest in the OECS and CARICOM—punish ordinary workers every time they get paid.
• Thousands placed on public assistance—surviving on a mere $320 per month, increased from $250 only after pressure. That is not empowerment; it is dependency.
• Families torn apart as loved ones leave the country in search of greener pastures, just to send a few dollars home so their families can eat.
• Women pushed into prostitution simply to provide for their children in an economy with no real alternatives.
• A minimum wage so low that even a minimum standard of living is out of reach.
• Food prices so high that every supermarket visit feels like a robbery.
• Sky-high electricity costs in a country blessed with sun and wind.
• Roads, police stations, and schools crumbling while you cut ribbons on shiny new buildings.
• Medication costs soaring and a rundown hospital system that regularly lacks the essential drugs people desperately need.

And while you labour to craft your legacy—and boast about your unemployed son’s big boat—countless Vincentians cannot pay their bills, much less dream of home ownership. You yourself have said you are “responsible for every square inch of SVG.” If so, then you must also be responsible for this suffering.

A First-World Fantasy in a Struggling Nation

Recently, you declared that SVG would become a first-world country within 15 years. You compared us to Dubai, London, New York, and Toronto—as if we were characters in your fantasy rather than citizens living through your reality.

I honestly did not know whether to laugh or cry.

You talk about first-world status while people cannot afford food, cannot access proper healthcare, and cannot find stable work. You talk about Dubai and New York while families are calculating which bill not to pay this month. I am not a medical professional, but this level of detachment from reality is frightening.

No Succession, No Humility, No Shame

You recently declared that no one in the NDP can handle the job of prime minister, and that only you can do what you do. That level of arrogance should shame you.

At nearly 80 years old, after 25 years in office, you still have not developed or handed over to a capable successor. What does that say about your leadership?

Any serious leader knows that succession planning is critical—for the party, for the government, and for the country. Instead, here we are: you clinging to power, your son hovering in the background, and the nation held hostage by your fear of letting go. That is not strength—it is insecurity dressed as authority.

From Hope to Burnout

When you were first elected, I was genuinely pleased. You spoke of education, housing, vision, development. Hope was in the air. You opened doors to learning and opportunity. People believed in you.

But somewhere along the way, you lost focus—or simply burnt out and refused to admit it.

For the past decade, most Vincentians have been tired of you, tired of your policies, tired of the recycled promises. Under your leadership, we have failed to develop any significant export market. Every major revenue sector is lagging. SVG is starting to resemble one of those heavily indebted nations that appear in economic textbooks only as cautionary tales.

The country is performing so poorly that we constantly hear of government borrowing just to stay afloat—sometimes even to pay salaries. In today’s SVG, the only institutions not in debt are the ones that hardly spend at all. That is not fiscal discipline; it is stagnation.

Where Is Your Record to Run On?

Barack Obama once said:
“If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone to run from.”

That is exactly what you are doing, Ralph.

So let’s ask the obvious:

• Where is your record to run on?
• Where are the tangible results that have transformed life for ordinary Vincentians?
• Why are so many young people unemployed, drifting without opportunities in their own homeland?
• Why can’t the average Vincentian dream of owning multiple homes or luxury boats like you and your family appear to enjoy?

If your leadership were truly great, why are so many people barely hanging on?

A Society Manipulated Against Its Own Interests

“The worst part of a society manipulated by politics is seeing the poor defend the rich who are responsible for their poverty.”

That is where we are today.

You have manipulated people so effectively that some of the very citizens who cannot pay their bills still defend you as “the best man to lead the country.” They defend you while living on crumbs. They defend you while their children migrate. They defend you while sinking deeper into debt.

That is not loyalty. It is the tragic success of political manipulation.

Goodbye, Comrade Ralph

Ralph, the time has come.

The people are tired—tired of gimmicks, tired of empty speeches, tired of dreams that never come true. You have had your time, more than enough of it. Whatever good you achieved in the early years has been overshadowed by arrogance, stagnation, and broken promises.

So I say this without malice, but with absolute conviction:

Goodbye, Comrade Ralph.

I truly wish you a peaceful retirement—but for the sake of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, that retirement needs to begin now.