St Lucia politician calls for term limits throughout the region

Castries, St Lucia — In commenting on the outcome of last Thursday’s general election results in Antigua and Barbuda, the leader of the Lucian People’s Movement (LPM), Therold Prudent, said that regional constitutions should be changed to allow only two terms in office for sitting prime ministers.

“Voters in the region have finally awakened and they are more interested in good governance than in preserving the longevity of incumbent political parties,” Prudent said in a press release on Sunday.

He believes that the days when ruling parties could rely on their incumbency to leverage control over the media and keep a largely uneducated and uninformed electorate loyal to them have all but vanished.

“The electoral trend in the Caribbean is not only good for democracy but also sends a very powerful message to all governments that if they do not take the appropriate steps to weed out corruption and crime and stem the growing tide of unemployment in the region, their second term in office, if granted, could very well be their last,” Prudent said.

However, he concludes that there can be no progress in eradicating corruption and crime and solving the unemployment situation throughout the region unless constitutional mechanisms are put in place effectively to end the historical tendency to rely on failed and recycled leadership to solve old and new economic and social challenges.

“In other words, like the American system of governance, which restricts presidents to no more than two terms in office, the same should be required throughout the individual member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) to allow for the emergence of fresh leadership and new ideas,” Prudent said.