Winston Baldwin Spencer, 60, was sworn in in St John's Friday as Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda for a second consecutive five-year term, a few hours after his ruling United Progressive Party (UPP) won a fresh mandate, but with a reduced majority.
Spencer, along with Attorney General Justin Simon, took the oath of office before Governor General Dame Louise Lake-Tack in a simple ceremony at her official residence. Only senior party officials and few supporters attended.
The UPP, which controlled 12 seats in the last parliament, only managed get re-elected in nine in Thursday's election, which was marred by a computer glitch that caused a major setback to voting and also pushed back counting in several constituencies.
The final tally announced on Friday morning showed that the main opposition Antigua Labour Party (ALP) had improved its position in the new parliament, winning seven seats compared to the four it had in the last legislature.
Trevor Walker, whose Barbuda People’s Movement (BPM) is closely aligned to the UPP, won the other seat in the 17-member legislature.
Walker defeated his close political rival Arthur Nibbs of the ALP in a close contest with the preliminary results showing that he won by a single vote.
Baldwin celebrated his victory and new mandate by giving the people a national holiday.
“I am surprised we did not win it more comfortably...it could have been more emphatic, but we prevailed,” he told jubilant supporters, adding that he was satisfied that the voters had given his administration a second opportunity “to move this country on the right track and in the right direction”.
The prime minister said, “We are on a rescue mission that started in 2004...your country today is in safe hands." But he had a warning that it will not be "business as usual”.
A major setback for Baldwin was the defeat of three of his cabinet ministers, including Finance Minister Errol Cort, whose loss to Antigua Labour Party (ALP) leader Lester Bird has rekindled hopes of extending that family’s dominance of the country’s political landscape.
Bird, 71, had already declared that Thursday’s election would be his last but is pleased to have been able to avenge his loss to Cort in 2004.
"The comeback kid has made the comeback,” Bird told reporters after the results showed he had beaten Cort to return to Parliament. The former prime minister is the last remaining active member of the country’s most powerful political family that governed the country for decades.
He was defeated in the 2004 election that saw the ALP lose office ending the rule of the Bird family. His father, the late Sir Vere Cornwall Bird Sr, led the nation into independence from the United Kingdom in 1981, becoming the country’s first Prime Minister. He had earlier served as Chief Minister and Premier.
Lester Bird, who had served in parliament from the 1970s until 2004 when he lost his seat in the general election, took over the leadership of the country after his father resigned in 1994 citing ill-health and amidst internal bickering within the then ruling party.
He led the ALP to two successive victories in 1994 and 1999. But despite an improved showing, the ALP, which held power here for 28 unbroken years prior to 2004, failed in its bid to unseat the UPP even though the incumbent party suffered a negative 3.9 per cent swing.
The preliminary figures show that the ALP received 18,499 votes as compared with 19,934 for the UPP. Political observers say the ALP has redeemed itself and is back in the political game in Antigua, demonstrating that it still has substantial support among the people.
The fallout from the election is a decision by Bishop Ewing Dorsette, a member of the island’s Electoral Commission, to resign from the electoral commission. The outspoken cleric is upset at what he termed “the debacle of Thursday’s general election" and appealed to his colleagues on the commission to follow him and quit.
“By the grace of God I will be resigning from the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission next week. I will be asking the people of this nation to call on the other members of the Commission to resign as well as the supervisor and the top five employees of the Commission.
“I am also asking that there be a complete forensic audit of the voters list to verify that all persons on the list are eligible to be on it,” the bishop said.
Bishop Dorsette said he would also be asking that the Parliament re-visit the plan of having persons who are not “natives of the country and who have not resided in this country for seven years to be included on our voters list”.
The has announced that it will file legal challenges later this week to the results in three of the 17 parliamentary constituencies, including that of Spencer.
If it succeeds it would unseat the government and return Lester Bird as prime minister.
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