St Kitts-Nevis voting in national election

The people of St. Kitts-Nevis are voting Monday in a general election that is a contest about which of the two parties can move the twin-island state forward.

The incumbent St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) has campaign on its record, saying it has ended poverty and empowered the people through education and wealth creation.

But the opposition People’s Action Movement (PAM) is not buying that and has been telling its supporters it is the only party that that move the country forward.

On the island of Nevis the contest is between the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) and the Concerned Citizen's Movement (CCM). Three seats at stake there. The main island has the other eight. There are about 32,000 eligible voters.

During the final days of the campaign the opposition PAM has charged that Prime Minister Denzil Douglas has a foreign bank account with "a significant amount of money".

Douglas has dismissed the allegations, calling them "absolute nonsense" and "ludicrous". He told the BBC it's a "red herring" tossed into the campaign by PAM leader Lindsay Grant to shift the focus of the campaign away from the government's vision for the development.

Former Prime Minister Kennedy Simmonds, a founding member of PAM, returned to the political stage during the campaign to chastise Douglas for suggesting that Jamaica, Antigua and Grenada are no better off after changing their governments.

He said the Douglas administration had increased the national debt to more than $1,1 billion.

He called for new leadership, saying the country is desperately in need of a “cure" for what he called "the cancer that is eating out the federation of St Kitts and Nevis".

There are 23 candidates seeking election. Observer teams from the Organization of American States (OAS), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Commonwealth will monitor the election.