Dr Ralph Gon­salves has been re­elect­ed Prime Min­is­ter of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines for a fifth term.

The elec­torate gave Dr Gon­salves' Uni­ty Labour Par­ty (ULP) nine of the 15 seats in the Par­lia­ment.

It rep­re­sents an in­crease of three seats on the pre­vi­ous one-seat ma­jor­i­ty he had en­joyed in the last two gen­er­al elec­tions.

It is al­so the first time that a po­lit­i­cal par­ty has won five con­sec­u­tive gen­er­al elec­tions there.

Gon­salves, 74, eas­i­ly won his North Cen­tral Wind­ward seat he has been rep­re­sent­ing since 2001, brush­ing aside the two oth­er can­di­dates in Chief­tain Nep­tune of the main op­po­si­tion New De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NDP) and Kad­miel McFee of the CVG Green Par­ty.

In a mes­sage post­ed on his Face­book page, Gon­salves thanked vot­ers for re­turn­ing the ULP to pow­er.

“It’s cel­e­bra­tion time. It is five in they tail,” he wrote,” as par­ty sup­port­ers gath­ered for a cel­e­bra­tion.

NDP leader Dr. God­win Fri­day, 61, who led the par­ty in­to a gen­er­al elec­tion for the first time, eas­i­ly re­tained the North­ern Grenadines seat he has rep­re­sent­ed in Par­lia­ment since 2001. He polled 2,123 votes against 458 for the ULP’s Car­los Williams.

The NDP swept the two seats on the sis­ter isle of the Grenadines. The oth­er seat, in the South­ern Grenadines was won by Ter­rance Ol­livierre, who de­feat­ed Ed­win Snagg by a mar­gin of 1153 to 559.

One of the causal­i­ties of the elec­tion was Health Min­is­ter Luke Brown, who was de­feat­ed by new­com­er, Dwight Fitzger­ald Bram­ble in the East Kingstown con­stituen­cy that had been rep­re­sent­ed by for­mer NDP leader Arn­him Eu­stace, a for­mer prime min­is­ter and fi­nance min­is­ter, who quit ac­tive pol­i­tics last year.

Brown, who polled 2, 306 votes had been de­feat­ed in the last two elec­tions by Eu­stace and had hoped to win the seat in his ab­sence. Bram­ble polled 2,547. In the North Lee­ward, the ULP’s Car­los James won by sev­en votes against the in­cum­bent Ronald Math­ews, polling 2, 287 as against 2, 280 for Math­ews. James had lost the seat in the 2015 elec­tion by 12 votes.

- Edit­ed from CMC News