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Roundup: United Workers Party wins St. Lucia parliamentary elections

Xinhua, June 7, 2016 Adjust font size:

The United Workers Party (UWP) won a comfortable victory in St. Lucia's parliamentary elections on Monday, regaining power to run the island nation in the next five years, according to reports monitored in Kingston.

Preliminary results showed the UWP, led by Allen Chastanet, seized 11 seats in the country's 17-seat House of Assembly, while the other six seats went to the St. Lucia Labour Party (SLP), led by incumbent Prime Minister Kenny Anthony.

The poll started at 6:30 a.m. (1030 GMT) and closed at 6 p.m. (2200 GMT) local time.

Voter turnout (51.9 percent) was the lowest since independence as a heavy thunder storm in the morning kept people at home.

The elections took place almost half a year before the constitutional deadline called by Anthony, who believed the early elections should avoid the intensive political campaign and debate that could become "distracting."

During the past four years ruled by the SLP, St. Lucia made progress in bridging fiscal deficit, controlling public debt and bringing the economy back to growth. But the introduction of the value-added tax has drawn huge fire from the public.

On promise to "build a prosperous and progressive St. Lucia for the benefit of all," Chastanet said he would try to reduce and ultimately eliminate the VAT should the UWP win.

Other measures proposed by the UWP to bring down the living cost in St. Lucia include the increase of income tax threshold, the reduction of corporate tax, and the exemption of property tax for three years.

St. Lucia, with a population of some 180,000, is an island nation in the eastern Caribbean on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean.

Independent from Britain in 1979, the country adopted the bicameral system of parliament with the directly elected 17-member House of Assembly, and the 11-member Senate, whose six members are chosen by the prime minister, three by opposition leader and two by the governor-general in consultation with religious and civil groups. Endi