00:00This Monday, December 1st, general elections are underway in St Lucia where more than 179,000
00:07people are expected to vote.
00:09Our correspondent Belén de los Santos is there and is going to bring us more details
00:12right now.
00:13Ale, exactly as we were saying, we are here in St Lucia at this moment.
00:19This is North Castries, the north of the St Lucia capital and the voting is underway.
00:26It has been so since 6.30 a.m.
00:29So we are here, we continue to just go over the different districts where this election
00:36is taking place.
00:37Let's recall, it's 17 seats to parliament and the majority gets to elect the PM.
00:44The leader of the majority gets to be the PM.
00:47And the incumbent prime minister, Philippe Pierre, has called the selections in order to try to
00:53renew the mandate.
00:54We are having closely following also the activity in the streets.
00:59We've been seeing and probably you've shared it already on screen.
01:03A lot of activism for both parties, but a lot of presence, at least in this area where we
01:10are now in Castries and in Grossesled, both very important districts, Castries is divided
01:17into a few different sectors.
01:20A lot of activism in favor of the Labour Party, the St Lucia Labour Party.
01:26We were recalling before some of the most important issues that brought this, well, the government
01:33to this election had to do with a lot of the achievements that were conquered during this
01:39time.
01:39And that is why the prime minister considered that this was a good time to call for this
01:44election in order to obtain that majority.
01:48Once again, let's recall that 2021 was the last victory.
01:53The country and the world in general was just coming out of COVID.
01:57There was a big mandate to restabilize the economy, to boost growth again.
02:05And that's what many are reporting that happened in different sectors in health, in education, with
02:13specific plans targeted to the youth in general, and also being able to target several challenges
02:21that are challenges that are common to the region as a whole.
02:25And the proposition, the ideas of the now government party was to try to face those challenges with
02:35more social programs, with a bet on putting the people first and strengthening those social
02:42aids in order to boost growth.
02:44And the numbers were there.
02:46We actually were speaking to the prime minister yesterday.
02:50We had some statements that were also in the screen of Tell Us Your English.
02:54And he was highlighting this on the opposition.
02:57We have the United Workers Party with a possible prime minister, a candidate prime minister that
03:04already took that functions up until 2021 and had a completely different view of the economy
03:13and the way which to those goals with a huge look and efforts put on the private sector.
03:21So basically in this election, the people are choosing where to head next if they're going to consolidate
03:29this model that is focused on this social programs, for example, installing the national minimum wage or if
03:39they're going back to the policies of the UWP, the opposition party.
03:46We will be seeing what is happening in the coming hours.
03:49Polls will be open until 6 p.m.
03:52So stay tuned here to have all the information.
03:55Ale, I go back to you now.
03:58Thank you, Will.
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