Although a secret agreement originally stated that Odlum would take power after six months, his support for Cuba and similar left-wing nations led to American pressure to keep him out.

After months of negotiations, Odlum was dismissed as Deputy Prime Minister, and the ensuing government weakness and infighting led to its defeat in the 1982 election.

Despite this, his funeral saw widespread grieving, with Ralph Gonsalves, the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, describing him simply as a "giant of a man".

[4] In 1972 Odlum left his job with the Council of Ministers to form the St Lucia Action Movement, which later merged with a weakened Labour Party in time for the 1974 general election.

Immediately beforehand, Odlum organised large protests in front of international news cameras, further cementing his role in the region's communist and socialist movement.

[3] Odlum's prominent role within the party led to his immediate appointment as Deputy Prime Minister, with the portfolios of foreign affairs and trade and industry.

[3] After again allying with the Labour Party in 1997, Odlum was returned to Parliament, receiving appointment as Foreign Minister in the government of Kenny Anthony.

[9] Odlum's ministry also saw the diplomatic recognition of China in 1997, following month-long negotiations and the offer of several million dollars worth of aid to Saint Lucia.

Odlum, on the other hand, argued that ruling members of the Labour Party had been making efforts to remove him and that the "dastardly act" of cutting away a significant portion of his constituency in a boundary change was what had forced him over the edge.

His speech censured the attendees for what he perceived as mourning Hector in death while failing to support him in life, asking "were you there when the ballot process was contaminated to declare him a loser?

His speech was criticised by Vere Bird, Jr., the Antiguan Minister of Agriculture, Lands and Fisheries, who called Odlum's words "strident and ill-informed reflections".

Odlum's funeral was held on 6 October, with a 30-vehicle procession travelling from Vieux Fort to Castries; it was led by a pair of police outriders and a coach carrying the coffin, draped in the national flag.

[18] Edwin Carrington, the Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community, stated that Odlum "served his country, St Lucia, with distinction" and was "charismatic, eloquent and a consummate master of communication, both in speaking and writing...one of the region's leading and most persistent exponents on the debilitating effects of the erosion of trade preferences for the region's banana industry on the livelihood of the people".

[19] Other tributes came from Ralph Gonsalves, the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, who described Odlum as "one of the region's finest political orators, who was persuasive, eloquent and was able to command attention universally, not only in his native capital city Castries but also at the United Nations, in Geneva, Cape Town or in London".

Gonsalves, at his funeral, noted that "the strictures of bureaucratic systems he found difficult to be contained within",[1] while his obituary in The Times described him as a man "with more flamboyance than substance".

[22] His support of figures such as Fidel Castro and Muammar Gaddafi was also noted as controversial, with his relentless left-wing approach to politics being identified as damaging both to others and to the causes he championed.