McLarty

St. Lucia's attorney-General, Victor La Corbiniere, claimed yesterday that Gordon 'Butch' Stewart's Sandals hotel chain timed the layoff of 100 employees in that Eastern Caribbean island to hurt the ruling St. Lucia Labour Party (SLP) in next month's general election.

But last night the hotel group's corporate headquarters in Kingston branded the charge as emotional, and said that it had been assured by St. Lucia's Prime Minister, Dr. Kenny Anthony, that La Corbiniere's statement did not reflect the sentiment of the St. Lucian government.

"It is clear that the advent of this highly charged political atmosphere has been accompanied by tendency to allow emotionalism to influence campaign tactics," Rachel McLarty, the director of corporate communications at Sandals Resorts, said in a statement.

"Sandals Resorts denies any allegation that recent restructuring activities at one of our resorts in St. Lucia, Sandals Regency St. Lucia Golf Resort & Spa, are in any way linked to an attempt to destabilise the country," McLarty added. "We stand by our business operating decisions to maintain our enviable high standards in the delivery of a world-class vacation experience to our guests."

The hotel group said it decided to outsource jobs in security, pest control, landscaping and departments to cut costs.

But St. Lucia, where Sandals owns three hotels, will vote in a general election on December 11 that will pit Anthony's SLP, seeking a third consecutive term in office, against the United Workers Party of 80-year-old Sir John Compton, who is attempting to rejuvenate his political career.

But in an island of 160,000 people, where tourism is the major industry, the lay-off of 100 workers, as Sandals did earlier this month, is a major development, which has been a political weapon against the government. And for La Corbiniere the timing was more than suspicious.

"We are convinced that the firing of the workers on the eve of the general elections was not accidental but was an attempt on the part of the company to destabilise the country," he said in a television interview. Just over 134,400 people are registered to vote for the island's 17 parliamentary seats.

La Corbiniere's clear implication was that the decision was timed to favour the UWP and Compton, during whose stewardship Stewart, in the mid 1990s, opened his first St. Lucian hotel. He, however, offered no specific evidence for his suggestion.

In fact, since the SLP assumed office in 1997 Stewart has taken over two more St. Lucian properties. But La Corbiniere suggested that Anthony has facilitated the Sandals expansion -sometimes at his political expense.

"In fact if you look at the entry of the Sandals chain into St. Lucia the very prime minister has been vilified all over this country for certain actions that he took that he felt were proper," La Corbiniere said.

But according to McLarty, Sandals officials in Castries, the St. Lucian capital, have reported that the administration was distancing itself from La Corbiniere comments.

Said McLarty: "Mr. Lennox Dupal, one of our general managers in St. Lucia, has been assured by (the) Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, that the statement by the attorney general does not reflect the sentiment of the St. Lucian government towards Sandals Resorts."

However there has apparently been no public denunciation of the minister's remarks.

McLarty said that Sandals, which employs 1,400 in St Lucia, intended to remain a major player in the island's economy "for many years to come".

UWP boost

John Compton's UWP has received a boost with the defection of three senior SLP politicians to its ranks:

- Petra Nelson, who served as chairman for the Castries Central constituency group;

- former SLP Cabinet minister Sarah Flood Beaubrun; and

- former SLP Senator, Tessa Mangal

The defections from the ruling party were indicative of its downward slide, Compton said.

But the defections have not been one-way. Several months ago, Dr. Vaughn Lewis, who became leader of the UWP and served for a year as prime minister after Compton retired in 1996, joined the SLP, taking with him a number of his party colleagues.

Lewis, the former secretary general of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States was ousted from the party's leadership 21 months ago when Compton staged a comeback.