Caribbean & Central America - 17 February 2004

Antigua must hold an election by end-March, and the rights of non-nationals have become one of the key battlegrounds of the pre-election campaign.

The leader of the opposition United Progressive Party (UPP), Baldwin Spencer, has promised non-nationals, who make up 25% of the 42,000 eligible voters, that if he wins the election he will introduce a Millennium Naturalization Act that will give citizenship to those who have lived in the country since the turn of the century. At the moment, Commonwealth citizens living in Antigua can only gain citizenship after seven years of unbroken residency.

Spencer's move has outbid Prime Minister Lester Bird's move last year to grant temporary residence to non-nationals who have lived in Antigua for more than three years, and his sensitivity on the issue was made plain at a public meeting on 3 February when Bird told his audience: 'I want to talk to you non-nationals too. You are in this country because of the [ruling Antigua] Labour Party. You owe us man. You owe us to vote for us.'

Spencer has also tried to put Bird under pressure over value-added tax (VAT), accusing the prime minister of intending to introduce the tax, which he called 'a regressive tax in that it takes a proportionately greater amount of money from the lower income groups in the society'. Spencer's allegation about VAT followed an address by Bird to the Chamber of Commerce in late January, and it left Bird scrambling (not altogether convincingly) to defend himself. 

In a statement issued on 3 February, Bird said: 'I want to make it clear that I did not reveal the introduction of VAT. In responding to a question about making certain ports in Antigua duty free I mentioned that a study was being done for all the OECS countries which contemplated the introduction of VAT in all of them. I advised of this development in the context of the removal of duties and tariffs from goods entering the country and said that if we were to make all of Antigua and Barbuda a duty-free part, then VAT would be one way of replacing the revenue that would be lost.'

The prime minister added: 'My party is not committed to the introduction of VAT. We have been fighting in the World Trade Organization negotiations and elsewhere for the retention of the existing system. Our intention is to ensure that there is no increase in prices through taxation.' But if Spencer has outbid Bird on the rights of non-nationals and put him on the back foot on VAT, Bird looks to have secured the pensioners by announcing on 31 January a 5% increase in pensions backdated to 1 August 2003. He also announced a minimum payment of EC$500 per month, back dated to December 2001.

Bird also said that he had plans for exempting all pensioners from paying travel and embarkation taxes, with all those over 75 to be exempted from property taxes. Furthermore, Bird said, 'After the next election the Labour Party will review the age for exemption with a view to reducing it to 70 by April 2006.'