The dust has barely settled on Antigua and Barbuda’s general election held on April 30, and a heated public debate has already erupted over what caused the United Progressive Party’s (UPP) historic defeat, with the party’s top leader rejecting a prominent political analyst’s scathing assessment of the opposition’s internal failures.
Political commentator Audley Phillip, who covers cross-cutting political, social and current affairs issues, has argued that deep-rooted internal dysfunction, rather than external factors, is to blame for the UPP’s abysmal showing at the polls. Ahead of the April 30 vote, Phillip noted, at least five high-profile UPP members defected to the ruling Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP), stripping the opposition of key talent and signaling widespread internal discontent. He added that multiple other prominent former UPP figures—including Bertrand Joseph, Chandlah Codrington, Errol Cort, Justin Simon, Namba Adams and Wilmoth Daniel—have either distanced themselves from the party or remained publicly silent in the lead-up to the election, clear evidence of deeper structural rot within the opposition’s ranks.
Phillip warned that the defeat has left the UPP facing a full-blown crisis of voter confidence. The current electorate, he argued, has largely withdrawn its trust in the party’s entire slate of candidates, and without dramatic action, the UPP risks losing its relevance as a major political force. To reverse its decline, Phillip said the party must either shift to extra-parliamentary leadership or carry out a sweeping internal overhaul. He also called for a generational shake-up, noting that many of the party’s recent candidates should step aside to make room for emerging new leaders that should be identified early as part of a deliberate rebuilding process.
But UPP chair D Gisele Isaac has forcefully pushed back against every part of Phillip’s critique, defending her party’s campaign and rejecting the framing of the UPP’s performance as a failure. Isaac insisted that the UPP ran a credible, ethical and fully responsible campaign in the lead-up to the vote. In the four weeks before election day, she pointed out, the party carried out extensive voter outreach: holding public rallies across the country, conducting door-to-door canvassing to connect with constituents, and clearly laid out its policy plans and programmatic priorities for voters. The party did everything a legitimate opposition should do to earn support, she argued.
In Isaac’s view, the election outcome was not a product of bad campaigning or internal disarray—it was the result of voter priorities that favored the ruling party’s vote-buying tactics. She claimed that the ABLP secured its victory by distributing material goods to voters, including plywood, galvanized steel, electronic devices, cash and what she described as questionable “scholarships”, incentives the UPP chose not to offer. “People made choices,” Isaac said, framing the final result as a simple reflection of voter preference that did not reflect on the quality of her party’s campaign.
To illustrate her point, she drew a vivid analogy: a chef can prepare a high-quality meal, perfectly set the table, and serve the dish properly, but if an invited guest chooses not to attend, that does not mean the chef or the meal itself was flawed. In the same way, she argued, the UPP’s efforts should not be judged solely by the election result.
The public back-and-forth comes after one of the most lopsided election results in Antigua and Barbuda’s recent political history. The ruling ABLP secured 15 of the 17 available seats in Parliament, leaving the UPP, the main opposition force, with just a single seat. The clash between Phillip and Isaac lays bare the deep divisions over what the UPP needs to do to recover, as the party grapples with its future direction and leadership questions in the aftermath of the devastating defeat.