Caribbean & Central America - October 2009 (ISSN 1741-4458)

*** COURT CASES DELAY ST KITTS & NEVIS ELECTION CALL.  Legal action over constituency boundaries is delaying the calling of a general election in St Kitts & Nevis by Prime Minister Denzil Douglas.  The opposition People's Action Movement (PAM) has also said that it will challenge the recently passed law that requires election candidates to prove that they only hold St Kitts-Nevis citizenship.
 The fifth anniversary of the 2004 election, won by Douglas's St Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) is on 25 October, but parliament may continue until the fifth anniversary of its first sitting following the election, that is until December 2009.  The general election must then be held within 90 days, which would be March 2010.

*** GUYANA'S BRAIN DRAIN.  The UN's 2009 Human Development Report revealed that Guyana's emigration rate is 33.5%, but amongst Guyana's university graduates the rate is a colossal 76.9%.  The upside of this is the economic contribution made by remittances.  In 2007, total remittances to Guyana were US$278m, an average of US$377 per person compared with an average of US$114 per person for Latin America and the Caribbean.
 Guyana has dropped 17 places on the report's Human Development Index, to 114 from 97 position in 2007/08.

*** DOMINICA GEARING UP FOR 2010 ELECTIONS.  The ruling Dominica Labour Party (DLP) has rejected suggestions that it will not be able to find candidates to contest all 21 seats at the general election due in 2010, despite the fact that a number of sitting MPs will be retiring, including some ministers.  The DLP president, Senator Peter St Jean, who himself plans to stand against opposition leader Ron Green, said in late September that there was an “over abundance" of candidates willing to stand for the party and that they would represent “the best and brightest that Dominica has to offer".  He added: “Let me assure Dominicans that when the Dominican Labour Party 2010 team is presented it will be the hardest working team across party lines."
Meanwhile, in a sure sign of increasing political activity, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has accused the opposition United Workers Party (UWP) of seeking funding from Taiwan for its election campaign.  The DLP government switched Dominica's allegiance from Taiwan to China.
 Ron Green denied the prime minister's allegations of a visit by UWP officials to the Taiwanese embassy in late September, saying on 6 October: “No such thing happened two weeks ago, and he is just attempting to hide away from the issues affecting us in Dominica_When I look at the broad picture, this is an attempt by the PM to hide the critical questions of the day."  But having denied this particular episode, Green added: “Why can't we be in contact with Taiwan?  Are we restricted to speaking with certain countries of the world?"

*** SURINAME GENERAL ELECTION SCHEDULED FOR 25 MAY.  Suriname's President Ronald Venetiaan has announced that a general election will be held on 25 May.  At the last election, Venetiaan's Nieuw Front won 23 out of 51 seats in parliament; however the latest opinion polls put the Mega Combination led by former dictator Desi Bouterse in the lead.

*** TRINIDAD TO HOLD OFF LNG EXPANSION.  David Small, director of policy at Trinidad & Tobago's Ministry of Energy, said on 7 October at the World Gas Conference that there would be no immediate expansion of Trinidad's LNG (liquefied natural gas) production due to a lack of gas. The possibility of adding a fifth “train" to the four at Atlantic LNG has been mooted for some time, but Small said: “As of now, the gas is not all there for an expansion.  It is not automatic that there will be a fifth train at Atlantic LNG."