Caribbean & Central America - July 2014 (ISSN 1741-4458)

***ABLP RETURNS TO POWER. The opposition Antigua & Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP), led by Gaston Browne, triumphed in general elections held in Antigua & Barbuda on 12 June. The ABLP ejected the ruling United Progressive Party (UPP) led by Baldwin Spencer after two five-year terms in office. According to the final results, the ABLP took 56.39% of the vote and doubled its seats in the 17-member House of Representatives from the last elections in 2009 to 14. The UPP took 41.57% of the vote and the remaining three seats, down from nine in the last election. The UPP’s ally, the Barbuda People’s Movement (BPM), garnered just 1.13% of the vote and lost its single parliamentary seat. Turnout was a convincing 90.06% of the total electorate of 47,720. The victory for the ABLP, which prior to its 2004 defeat had dominated Antiguan politics for three decades under the Bird family, was not a surprise given the poor state of the economy and high unemployment – the main voter concern. GDP growth was just 0.5% in 2013, down from 2.8% in 2012, according to the most recent (April 2014) report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This, after GDP contracted 2.1% in 2011; 8.6% in 2010; and 10.7% in 2009. The weak growth comes as the fiscal deficit is on the rise, reaching 4.3% of GDP in 2013, up from 1.4% in 2012, on April 2014 figures from the UN Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean (Eclac).

***GUYANESE LEGISLATIVE IMPASSE CONTINUES. The Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) (a regional affiliate of the IMF-backed Financial Action Task Force (FATF)) ‘blacklisted’ Guyana in November 2013 for failing to address “significant strategic deficiencies in its Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime”. The blacklisting was the inevitable outcome of an ongoing stalemate between the Guyanese government and parliamentary opposition over the passage of a legislative bill directly related to AML/CFT. On 19 June Guyana’s President, Donald Ramotar, took to the airwaves to lay blame for the impasse on the two main opposition parties—A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC)—that collectively represent a majority in the national legislature. President Ramotar stated that his government had acquiesced to both parties' demands but the joint opposition continues to refuse to cooperate with his government on the matter. This, however, is only partially true. Whilst the government has accepted a key demand shared by both parties—essentially that the AML/CFT regime be more robust and separated from the executive branch of government––a key condition of the APNU for its support is that the President gives his assent to various pieces of parliament-approved legislation unrelated to the AML/CFT Bill including, most significantly, the 2013 Local Authorities Election (Amendment) Bill that mandates local government elections be held by August this year (Guyana has not had local elections since 1994). On this crucial matter, the President was conspicuously silent during his radio address. At the FATF’s 25-27 June plenary in Paris, the watchdog accepted a CFATF referral of Guyana and has committed to undertaking a targeted review of the country with its results, including a potential blacklisting recommendation, to be presented at its next meeting in October.

***GRENADA SECURES INTERNATIONAL LOANS. On 26 June Grenada’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell, announced that he had secured a US$21.9m Extended Credit Facility programme from the IMF to support the government’s three-year ‘Home Grown Programme’ of structural reform and economic growth. In addition to the IMF assistance, Prime Minister Mitchell claimed that the agreement will trigger an almost immediate flow of further financial assistance to Grenada over three years, to the collective tune of EC$300m (US$100m), from the World Bank, the Caribbean Development Board and the European Union, to fund the programme. Mitchell also explained that some of Grenada’s creditors are prepared to forgive up to 50% of the nation’s debt owed to them in order to assist with the implementation of the government’s programme.