Caribbean & Central America - March 2018 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Prime Minister Gaston Browne, leader of the ruling Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) has called an election for 21 March, more than a year before the next election is constitutionally required. The once dominant ABLP is seeking a consecutive second term having ousted the United Progressive Party (UPP) in 2014 after the UPP’s two terms in power from 2004. In the 2014 election, the ABLP won by 14 seats to three for the UPP in the 17-seat House of Representatives.

The ABLP was the party of the Bird family, first led by Vere Bird, who rose to fame as a union leader in the 1950s and took the country to independence in 1981, and then by his son Lester. Apart from one term from 1971-1976, the ABLP was the dominant political force in Antigua from 1951 to 2004. The ageing Lester Bird was only finally removed from the leadership of the party after the second successive defeat at the polls for the ABLP. But the leadership didn’t move far from the Bird family. Gaston Browne is married to Lester’s niece.

The ABLP under the Birds was characterised by corruption tempered by paternalism, and by 2004 the electorate had clearly decided that the disadvantages of this trade off outweighed the benefits, and they were helped in expressing this dissatisfaction by the creation of an independent Electoral Commission after the 1999 election.

The ABLP’s return to power was no doubt helped by the change in leadership, but it was also a consequence of bad economic luck for the UPP. There were three years of sharp contraction after the global financial crisis, from 2009-2011. But the real problem was that the recovery in 2012 (2.8% growth) was quickly snuffed out, with a further contraction of -0.1% in 2013.

The ABLP has been luckier. There was an immediate return to growth, with a 5.1% advance in 2014, 4.1% in 2015, and 5.3% in 2016. The estimated growth for 2017 is a lower 3.0%, but the prime minister has been notably bullish about 2018, talking about a double-digit expansion on the back of a US$90m port-expansion project which started in January and a huge new 400-room hotel project. Barbuda, which lost 95% of its buildings to Hurricane Irma, will also benefit from reconstruction work.

The prime minister’s promise of a double-digit expansion may be too bullish, but it makes good electioneering, and in any case the Caribbean Development Bank is predicting a perfectly acceptable 5.3% expansion for 2018. It would seem like a sensible time to call an election.