The Unity Labour Party (ULP) is a

democratic socialist Democratic socialism is a left-wing economic and political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-mana ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, sometimes known simply as Saint Vincent or SVG, is an island country in the eastern Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies, at the south ...

. Currently the governing party, it is led by Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. Unity Labour Party
The party is an observer of COPPPAL and an affiliate of

Foro de São Paulo Foro (, ) is a town in the Northern Red Sea region (Zoba Semienawi Keyih Bahri) of Eritrea. Overview A small city located near the coast, Foro was built at the confluence of the Haddas, Aligide and Comaile rivers. In the 1960s, there was sig ...

. From 1994 to 2014, the party was a member of

Socialist International The Socialist International (SI) is a political international or worldwide organisation of political parties which seek to establish democratic socialism, consisting mostly of Social democracy, social democratic political parties and Labour mov ...

History

The party was formed in 1994 from the merger of the Saint Vincent Labour Party and the Movement for National Unity. The parties had run as an alliance in the

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...

earlier that year, promising voters that they would merge after the election regardless of the result. In the 1998 elections they received 54.6% of the vote, but the

New Democratic Party The New Democratic Party (NDP; , ) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic: * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Editors of ''Encyclopædia Britann ...

won a majority of seats. The first leader of ULP, Sir Vincent Beache, resigned after the elections, and was succeeded by Ralph Gonsalves. However, in the 2001 general election the ULP won its first parliamentary

majority A majority is more than half of a total; however, the term is commonly used with other meanings, as explained in the "#Related terms, Related terms" section below. It is a subset of a Set (mathematics), set consisting of more than half of the se ...

, winning twelve of the fifteen seats. The party won another majority in the 2005 general election. The party was narrowly re-elected in the 2010 general election, winning 8 out of 15 elected seats in the

House of Assembly of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines The House of Assembly of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is the unicameral legislature of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The Monarchy of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Vincentian monarch and the House of Assembly constitute the Parliament ...

and the same taking place in the 2015 general elections and was re-elected in the 2020 general election, this time winning 9 out of 15 seats but lost the popular vote to the New Democratic Party. In November 2020, Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines since 2001, made history by securing the fifth consecutive victory of his Unity Labour Party (ULP) in general election.

Electoral history

House of Assembly elections

References

{{Authority control Labour parties Former member parties of the Socialist International Political parties in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Political parties established in 1994 Republicanism in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Republican parties Socialist parties in North America 1994 establishments in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines