THE NEW PRIME MINISTER OF ST VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES

The Hon. Dr. Godwin Friday is an historian and an attorney. He is the new Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines. On 27 November 2025, he replaced the Hon Dr. Ralph Gonsalves who is also a PhD as Prime Minister after Dr. Gonsalves served in the position for 24 continuous years. Dr. Gonsalves said that he will stay on as the sole Opposition member of the Parliament and he intends to rebuild the party for the comeback. Anything is possible. For the moment though, the country that he led for 24 years is in a thrall.  The new Prime Minister is at the height of his popularity and is just finding his sea legs.  He has a connection to The Bahamas because he was a student of the late Professor Michael Craton of Waterloo University in Canada.  Mr. Craton was once a teacher at Government High School and wrote the first definitive book on the History of The Bahamas. Later, he and D. Gail Saunders, the late Chief Archivist of The Bahamas, wrote a two volume set about the history of The Bahamas. Dr. Godwin was a student of Professor Craton on that project so he spent many days in the Archives Dept. in Nassau.  He also wrote his master’s thesis on the external affairs policies of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. Fred Mitchell MP was there in St Vincent on 16 December 2025 to pay a courtesy call and get a sense of where the new Prime Minister is on regional matters.  The new Prime Minister promised to make a stop in Nassau soon as he spoke to Prime Minister Philip Davis by phone.