CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC – St. Lucia's Prime Minister Stephenson King has succeeded in convincing disgruntled United Workers Party (UWP) Members of Parliament that he should be given another opportunity to remain as leader of the country, a government official confirmed.

 

As a result, details of a restructured Cabinet are expected to be made known in a statement to the nation on Tuesday.

 

Government’s Public Relations Officer, Jeff Fedee, Monday said that the impasse, which threatened the life of the King administration, was resolved over the weekend during a marathon meeting involving MPs and other top officials of the UWP.
 

The Prime Minister had been under intense pressure to resign due to his refusal to sack his Economic and Planning Minister Ausbert d’Auvergne, who was accused of having too much clout as a non-elected member of government.

 

However, a major impediment to a resolution of the crisis was removed Friday following the announcement that d’Auvergne had resigned from the government.

 

Two weekends ago former Foreign Affairs Minister Rufus Bousquet and Dennery North MP Marcus Nicholas, who was also Deputy Speaker of the House, wrote the Governor General withdrawing their support for King as Prime Minister and more recently two others threatened to withdraw their support if King failed to heed the wishes of some government MP’s.

 

But sources close to the discussions told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that King had pleaded with those attending the meeting to keep him in the Prime Minister’s chair.

 

Meanwhile, King has rejected claims that any truce reached among members of the ruling party would be temporary, stating that while he understood that some people would have lost faith in the administration, there remained a significant amount of goodwill within the party.

 

“There is a common commitment among members of the party and government to engage themselves in the implementation of the development agenda for St. Lucia,” he said.

 

Commenting on d’Auvergne’s departure, King described him as the driving force behind government’s national development plan, adding that “personally I felt that his experience in planning and economic matters would have given him that opportunity to deliver on those plans and the vision that Sir John had left behind”.

 

Former Prime Minister Sir John Compton led the UWP to victory in the December 2006 general elections, but died in September of the following year. King was subsequently chosen to lead the party and the government.

 

 

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