The United Party (UP) is making preparations to launch its elections campaign with the planned disclosure of its list of candidates to contest the upcoming polls, said Chairman Conrad A. Maduro. Photo: Provided

Speaking to Virgin Islands News Online in an exclusive interview this week, Maduro said the party is in the process of getting its candidates together with a view to disclosing them to the public soon.

“We are planning to come out during this month. So it might be later in the month, maybe around the end of the month but we are planning to come out,” said Maduro. He said that even though they are hoping to garner the interest of enough persons so that they could have a full 13-member slate, he believes people should seek to become more involved in deciding their country’s future.

“Right now we are trying to see if we could get a full slate of 13 members. But what is happening is we think that the people of the territory should take a greater interest in what is going on,” he said.

Political dictatorship

“The people don’t really have an input. What they are calling democratic government is not really democratic government. It is really an elected dictatorship. You don’t have by the people and for the people,” he said.

Maduro noted that political parties in places in the Virgin Islands are minority groups. “When we came out that was the system and we all had to accept. Maybe later down the road it might change for better or maybe it would get worse,” he said. He said the public has no say in what the parties decide to put in their manifesto and as such the people are accepting a government of a minority group.

“The views of the people are not there and this is why you find that after the elections the people are dissatisfied. They buy something which they really didn’t understand what they were buying. We are trying to educate the people what true democracy is. We are encouraging them to speak out and give their views and the decisions that will be made will be made from the overall party membership,” he said.

NDP selling out the country

Maduro said that one of the things that his party would fight for is to ensure that the land remains available for Virgin Islanders. “People are not aware of these issues,” he said adding that the NDP is catering to rich foreigners.

He further accused the NDP of selling out the country. “To me they have already betrayed the people. They are actually fronting for a group of people and they have actually given them concessions and so on and the people really don’t know what went on and what’s going on,” said Maduro.

Origins of United Party

The United Party was originally formed by Conrad A. Maduro, H. Lavity Stoutt, Terrance B. Lettsome and Ivan Dawson during the territory’s first session of the Legislative Council under the new constitution in 1967 subsequent to the general elections on April 14, 1967.

Although Maduro was the President of the party, he did not win his seat at the 1967 general election, and so it was agreed that Lavity Stoutt would be appointed Chief Minister.

However, leading up to the 1971 general election H. Lavity Stoutt and Lettsome left the party to form the Virgin Islands Party.

The United Party held power from its formation in 1967 until 1971. Then in 1975 it regained power as part of a coalition with Willard Wheatley until 1979. It regained power for the final time in November 1983 as part of a coalition with Cyril B. Romney. The last election in which the United Party won a seat was the 1995 general election when Maduro and Andre A. Penn were the only candidates to win a seat.