Caribbean & Central America - April 2013 (ISSN 1741-4458)

The prime minister of St Kitts & Nevis (SKN), Dr Denzil Douglas, is clinging to power despite losing his majority of elected members of the National Assembly, but it is uncertain as to how long he can continue to hold on without calling an election.

There are eleven elected members of parliament, three appointed senators, and the attorney-general, who sits ex officio. In the 2010 general election, Douglas’s Labour Party (SKNLP) won six seats, to which it could add two appointed senators to give it eight. The opposition seats were split as follows: two for the People’s Action Movement (PAM), two for the Concerned Citizens’ Movement (CCM), and one for the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP), plus one opposition senator.

Since then, two Labour Party ministers have defected, leaving the government with just four elected members. However, to this can be added two senators, one opposition member, and – controversially – the attorney general. As Douglas puts it: “We can pass any law and we can win any debate in parliament because the government of the Labour Administration is in fact a Majority Government…We have 10 members on our side. Those on the other side are only five, and even if the two Judas’s were to go over to their side… two from 10 leaves eight and 5+2 is seven…so it is eight against seven.”

There are two problems with this arithmetic. The first is the controversial appointment of the attorney-general as a senator; the second is the fact that on a vote of no confidence only elected members can vote – which is why the opposition has been trying to table a no confidence motion since 11 December and the government has been avoiding it.

Six of the elected members say they are ready and willing to form a unity government, two from PAM, two from CCM, and the two former Labour ministers who now say they are independents. PAM deputy leader Eugene Hamilton warned the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Assembly on 26 March of possible civil unrest in SKN if the prime minister continued to refuse “to follow the constitution and Westminster traditions” in allowing the debate of a no-confidence motion.