In a speech to a large crowd on a football field, Gonsalves lauded the achievements of his government during the last five years, saying: “We stand on our excellent record of governance, our philosophy of social democracy as applied to the contest of our ennobling Caribbean civilisation, our uplifting vision focused on our people, our creative and relevant programmes, our splendid team of candidates, and our quality leadership.”

He said his Unity Labour Party (ULP) administration had created more jobs than it had promised, but confessed that its tenure had not been a perfect one.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines is a parliamentary democracy within the Commonwealth. The parliament is a unicameral body with a fifteen-member elected house of assembly and a six-member appointed senate. The governor general appoints senators, four on the advice of the prime minister and two on the advice of the leader of the opposition.

Until the 2001 election, politics in St. Vincent had been dominated by the New Democratic Party, led by James Fitz-Allen Mitchell, who won a clean sweep of all 15 seats in 1989 elections. In 1998, Prime Minister Mitchell and the NDP were returned to power for an unprecedented fourth term but with only a slim margin of eight seats to seven seats for the ULP.

In March 2001, the ULP, led by Ralph Gonsalves, assumed power after winning twelve of the fifteen seats in Parliament.