It was with great sadness that I learnt of the passing of Kenneth Foster, Q.C, and former political leader of the Saint Lucia Labour Party. His career as a lawyer is legendary and as is being attested from the tributes to him from the legal fraternity, he was Saint Lucia’s greatest criminal lawyer. However, what is perhaps less well-known is that Kenneth Foster, as a member of the Saint Lucia Labour Party, played a critical role in Saint Lucian politics in the late 1960s to the 1970s and brought to the politics, the same passion and determination that he had exhibited in his legal practice.
Kenneth Foster became the leader of the Saint Lucia Labour Party at one of its most trying periods, rescuing it from disintegration after its 1964 election defeat by bringing some order to the party and placing it on a path that would eventually return it to electoral success in 1979.
Although he narrowly lost his first electoral contest in 1969, in the interest of party unity, he yielded the leadership of the party to Allen Louisy to achieve a united Labour front. This paid off and SLP came close to victory in the 1974 elections with Kenneth Foster being elected to Parliament for the first time in Anse La Raye Canaries. He was reelected in the massive Labour victory in 1979.
When divisions surfaced in the 1979 SLP government, Foster remained loyal to the party and again showed his selflessness by giving up his constituency of Anse La Raye Canaries to contest a new seat in the interest of the party. The party and Foster were defeated and he then retired from active politics.
Kenneth Foster fought daringly for the cause of Labour and while he did not gain the success and renown he achieved in his legal life, his contribution to the Labour Party cannot be forgotten.
May He Rest in Peace.
