Caribbean & Central America - 16 November 2004

On 25 October, Prime Minister Dr Denzil Douglas of the St Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) secured a third term in office following a snap general election held six months ahead of schedule.  

The SKNLP, which held all eight of the St Kitts seats in the outgoing parliament, conceded one of the main island's seats to the opposition People's Action Movement (PAM).  

On Nevis, the Concerned Citizens' Movement (CCM) of Nevis's pro-independence premier Vance Amory won two seats, with the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) taking the third. A further three members are appointed to the 15-member parliament, with an additional one sitting ex-officio.

The conservative PAM based its election campaign on 'sound macroeconomic policies, trade and exchange liberalization, privatization, and diversification' of the economy. Opposition leader Lindsay Grant argued that the ratio of debt to GDP is 160% and that the national debt of US$740.7m is 10 times the US$74.07m recorded at the time PAM left office in 1995.

The social-democratic SKNLP, for its part, based its election campaign on continuing its 'programme of social development […] whereby the meek and the lowly, the small and the weak, the poor […] have their rightful place in this country of ours.'