NDP accusing us of election rigging and they hired SCL – PM

The government of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) has been accused over and over of rigging elections by the New Democratic Party (NDP).

But, according to Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, as the NDP continues to accuse the Unity Labour Party (ULP) of cheating, the opposition has in the past aligned themselves with Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL Group)/Cambridge Analytica, an entity known for rigging elections all over the world.

“Imagine the NDP accusing us of rigging elections and they hired a firm which is notorious for rigging elections in the whole of Africa and the Caribbean,” the Prime Minister told party supporters at the ULP’s 24th convention at the Campden Park Secondary School last Sunday.

Back in 2008, PM Gonsalves told radio listeners that SCL was working against the ULP since 1998 on behalf of the NDP, and in the 2009 referendum they worked against the proposed constitution, which the ULP Government lost.

Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonlsaves (centre) is being assisted with note taking by a child at last Sunday’s Unity Labour Party 24th annual Convention. Dominica’s Minister of Trade Ian Douglas is seated at the far right. (Photo by Robertson Henry)

Last Sunday, the PM said that SCL are “mind benders” that will tap into emails, view what you are browsing on the Internet while illegally tapping phones.

“They have done it before and SCL has contempt for black people. The leadership, they are a bunch of racist and those are the people the NDP get themselves hooked up with,” Gonsalves told the gathering.

The PM also quoted from a book published in 2019 and written by whistleblower Christopher Wyllie, a former employee of Cambridge Analytica. The book is called “Mindf*CK- Cambridge Analytica and the plot to break America”.

“They tried to break SVG before they break America with SCL, but the ULP is stronger than the Democratic Party in the United States, we know how to fight them,” said Gonsalves.

Reading from page 53 of the book, the PM said that SCL interfered in elections in Trinidad and Tobago and according to Wylie, a few years ago they sent people on the ground to Caribbean telecommunications companies to ask if SCL could tap into their data [firewall] in real time.

Wylie said in his book, “…to my surprise this was possible. Working with a set of contractors, SCL was able to tap into the telecoms firewall, pick an IP address and sit and watch what a person in Trinidad was browsing on the Internet at that very moment.

“Not surprisingly, it was a lot of porn. People were browsing everything imaginable, including the culturally specific Trini porn. I can remember sitting around the computer one evening and watching as someone toggled between looking up plantain recipes and watching porn, and all the time Alexander Nix, which is the boss of SCL laughed at them.

“It was a revoltingly giddy laugh, almost infantile. He looked up the IP address and then open up Google maps satellite view to see the neighborhood this person lived in.”

Alexander Nix is a British businessman and the former CEO of Cambridge Analytica and a former director of SCL.

“They stay in London watching you because they want to tap as many as you as possible, to know your mind and try to fashion things to come to your mind, to corrupt your mind against Ralph as they were trying to corrupt them against the PNM in Trinidad,” Gonsalves told the gathering.

Wylie said the directors of SCL assigned Nix to lead the firm’s business of rigging elections in forgotten countries of Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia and Nix would give politicians access to anything they wanted, including access to prestigious clubs frequented by royals and prime ministers’ and invitations to exclusive parties.

“Once he gained their trust, he would then broker deals between ministers who were looking for validation and women and businessmen who were looking to exploit corrupt business opportunities and travel unnoticed,” said Wylie who added that Nix saw that even the smallest and most obscure island nation could offer two things of exceptional value, passports and tax immunity.

“Nix once said to a colleague in an email referring to black politicians in Barbados, “quote ‘they are just niggas’ unquote,” said Gonsalves.

Wylie added also that they went to Trinidad unannounced with superior technology and a moral disregard no better than the king’s armies, except this time unlike the conquerors of old, they were completely invisible.

“You see how they function? You see what NDP brought to this country and want to bring it again? We stop them in 2001, we stop them in 2005, in 2010 and 2015 with SCL and we will stop them again in 2020,” Gonsalves said.

Gonsalves said that the NDP runs nasty campaigns and the nastiness of the campaign is wrapped up with people who want to sell citizenship.

The PM also spoke about an article in The Spectator, “Revealed: Cambridge Analytica and the Passport King: The intriguing story of how Alexander Nix struck up a relationship with Christian Kalin”.
In that article, it was noted that SCL and Kalin worked together on an election campaign here, but lost.

The article reads, “There, they worked with Arnhim Eustace, leader of the opposition. SCL billed Eustace’s New Democratic Party (NDP) more than $4 million, including $100,000 for ‘counter operations’.

“In emails seen by The Spectator, Kalin describes to Eustace what ‘we could do with you once you are in government’. He even goes on to suggest what the candidate might say in his campaign. ‘You might wish to discuss this with your strategists,’ he tells Eustace, ‘and think about what you may wish to include in your propaganda (having used this word, the below points are not propaganda, but is very much a reality if you let us do it).

“If there is an acceptable government in place (i.e. NDP) you can count on the following…”.

Kalin then lists various investments that Eustace could count on if he won the election, such as a large residential and hotel development, a new chain of retail banks from ‘an important international banking group, a construction group to invest in major infrastructure projects, as well as input from ‘a global player in private air-craft services’ and from ‘several of the world’s most experienced international tax specialists’.”

It was also noted that one of the SCL operatives from the St Vincent campaign, Dan Muresan, was later found dead under ‘mysterious circumstances’ in a hotel room in Kenya. It is believed that at the time of his death he was working for SCL on President Kenyatta’s campaign.

The PM said that a document from SCL, released by a newspaper in England, said that SCL digitally attacked Gonsalves by manipulating Google to show negative results on searches during the last elections.

PM Gonsalves said that in his opinion, the NDP does not have any realistic chance of taking any of the eight seats the ULP has. He said the marginal seats are East Kingstown, South Leeward and North Leeward, seats held by the NDP.