Kenny Anthony - General Election Defeat

General Election Defeat

In the general elections held on 11 December 2006, the SLP suffered a surprise defeat by 11 seats to 6 at the hands of the John Compton-led UWP. While the SLP lost the election by 5 seats, the popular vote margin was in fact very slim, just over 2000 votes.

Anthony himself won a handsome victory in his constituency, Vieux Fort South, winning by 627 votes, only a few less than in the SLP's landslide election victory. Anthony remained head of the party and assumed the role of Leader of the Opposition.

An interesting twist to the 2006 elections saga is that many feel that St. Lucians went to the polls not to elect a new government but to ensure that there would be a tougher opposition as against the 16-1 majority that the SLP had previously enjoyed. In a fate of irony, voters perhaps overcompensated for the frequent poll reports and political pundits' predictions that the SLP would again win a third term with a 14-3 majority. Many feel that had Anthony himself not latched on to those poll results he might have been better able to convince his own supporters that they were not yet in the clear and to turn out to vote in larger numbers.

Further, the reaction of many voters to the crossing over of former UWP leader Vaughan Lewis to the SLP was not positive. Lewis was a staunch opponent of the Labour government and the former Prime Minister who had lost the elections to the SLP - albeit after being handed the post only one year before the fateful loss. Anthony and Lewis have both stated publicly that all the "bad blood" between them was now "water under the bridge".

In late July 2007, Anthony said that Compton's illness, caused by a series of strokes, and his inability to perform his duties - Stephenson King was named acting Prime Minister - meant that a new election should be held. Anthony was head of the Commonwealth of Nations observer mission in the August 2007 election in Sierra Leone. He gave the election a positive appraisal.

In March 2008, Anthony visited Cuba where he voiced his appreciation for its support of Saint Lucia. He toured Havana and Cienfuegos Province, and met with senior officials including First Vice-President José Ramón Machado Ventura.

Anthony was returned to Prime Ministership on 30 November 2011, following the Saint Lucia Labour Party convincing electoral victory at the 2011 elections, winning 11 out of the 17 seats in Parliament.