Elections 2026 are over –what’s next?

The People have spoken! The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been returned to office 14-1 under the leadership of Dickon Mitchell, consolidating its position from 9-6 in the elections of 2022. History has been made! For the first time ever, the NDC has been returned to office for a second consecutive term! This is the team chosen to manage Grenada’s affairs over the next five years. Looking at the numbers that have been publicised to date, one notes that NDC obtained 61 percent of the votes cast – 37,369 votes -14,802 votes ahead of the New National Party (NNP)’s 22,567 votes, 36.8 percent of the votes cast. These votes were distributed in 15 constituencies in favour of the NDC. There were no marginal victories, the narrowest being 162 votes – David Andrew victorious over the NNP’s leader -Emmalin Pierre. The only NNP seat is the St George’s North West constituency, a stronghold formerly represented by Dr Keith Mitchell over the last 42 years, December 1984 to October 2022.

Looking at the results for the NNP which has won 15 seats on three occasions, but this time around only one, is puzzling to many observers. What has caused the loss in St Mark after being represented from 1995 – October 2022? Dr Clarice Modeste-Curwen took the reins from January 1999-October 2022. Then a new candidate Myanna Charles was selected to run against Caris De Gannes of the NDC. They were both newcomers to the scene, but in the end, out of the roughly three thousand votes that were cast, De Gannes won by over three hundred votes to be the new representative in Parliament for the constituency of St Mark. This newspaper has learnt that sadly, the result seriously affected her opponent health wise. In the St Andrew South East seat which was a strong hold for NNP, voter turn-out was almost half of the registered ones and the party’s new leader Emmalin Pierre lost big time. Fingers are being pointed at her leadership style which did not seem to attract newcomers to boost the party’s support. But the man who has led the NNP to the top has decided to ‘throw in his towel’ as he faces his twilight years. However, his supporters in the St George North West constituency are not ready to give up on his party and voted newcomer Dr Adrian Joseph to victory.

The unseating of Peter David in the Town of St George by Claudette Joseph is another twist in the scheme of things. He has been the Member of Parliament for the Town from November 2003 to October 2026 except for the period March 2013 to February 2018 when he deferred to Nicholas Steele. Peter will certainly be remembered for launching a new political party -the Democratic People’s Movement (DPM), declaring himself the leader at the launch. During the campaign with nine candidates, he was even bold enough to make an appeal to his “wonderful friends within the NNP’’ to vote for him. Attorney Arley Gill -deputy leader of DPM, boasted that Peter had the Town of St George in his heart, in his brain, in his foot, in his soul case. It is a known fact that his strongest support was from residents of the ‘Four Roads’ area of Town of St George. So, time will tell just how they will settle down to a new representative in the person of Claudette Joseph who is from the other side of town. According to pollster Peter Wickham, Peter David is still celebrating a victory, since his intention was to prevent the NNP from winning.

The Town of St George constituency also saw two new faces and one new political party which made it four candidates vying for the seat. Joel Troy Noel from the NNP who got little over 700 votes and Carole Alexander-Jones of the CHGCP. She publicly thanked the four people who saw her fit enough for their votes and promised to stay on track to bring on some kind of change in Grenada.

The crossing of the floor by Delma Thomas, while it did cause some drama on the political scene, has benefitted NDC big time. It was a clean sweep at the St Andrew North West constituency as she ran against new-comer Marcia Francis of the NNP and Olvine Holas of the DPM. Over half of the votes were cast in her favour as she showed up herself as a very strong contender who understands politics.

This newspaper congratulates the NDC on its victory which comes with the journey of another term in office. We are aware that as the other members of Parliament take up their offices on Monday, they will be preoccupied with getting the budget out of the way and dealing with the European Union’s request to four OECS countries – St Kitts-Nevis, Antigua-Barbuda, Dominica and Grenada asking them to phase out their Citizen by Investment (CBI) programmes by the end of June 2028 or else.

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