PM Browne: UPP losing support at the constituency level

Just one year on from the 2023 General Elections where the opposition United
Progressive Party increased its numbers in the House of Representatives, the party
is losing some of the gains it made among the population.
And according to Prime Minister Gaston Browne the recent polls have found that
members of the electorate who cast votes in favour of the UPP in the elections 15
months ago, are now having regrets.
“What we find from the recent polls that have been done is that those who voted
for them (UPP) in the last general elections are now having regrets; they are
actually losing support within the constituencies. Isn’t that amazing?” he
exclaimed.
PM Browne said he wondered what gave rise to the amount of support the UPP
enjoyed at the last election where they performed better than expected by
increasing their numbers in the House from one to six members. He added that this
was however explained by several of the pollsters who did opinion surveys.
“A couple of the pollsters said to me it was ‘a perfect storm’ with the ABLP
having practically everything against it; high cost of living, high fuel prices, water
problems and the roads, and that’s why we are focusing on the water and the roads
to take these off the table,” the prime minister explained.
PM Browne takes the view that even with the ‘perfect storm’ that included high
unemployment, the UPP did not win the general elections, which, he feels, is quite
significant.
“This tells you that the people of Antigua and Barbuda did not have the confidence
to give them the government,” he remarked.
The prime minister is suggesting that some UPP parliamentarians, especially in the
House of Representatives, have a checkered record of performance in terms of
their attendance and their participation in the debates when they do attend, that
these ‘have left much to be desired’. He believes that this is one issue that may be
driving the decreasing support by the electorate.