St Kitts and Nevis - Politics

The 1993 elections gave four seats to the ruling People’s Action Movement (PAM) and four seats to the St Kitts–Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP), which had won 54% of the votes. This dead-heat between the two larger parties resulted in parliamentary instability: the PAM, led by Prime Minister Dr Kennedy Simmonds, was able to form a governing alliance with the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) but, at that period, the NRP was itself losing support to the other main Nevis party, the Concerned Citizens’ Movement (CCM).

In an early general election in 1995, after 15 years in opposition, the SKNLP was elected to office with an overwhelming majority of seven seats to the PAM’s one. The CCM retained its two seats in Nevis and the NRP one, the NRP’s Hugh Heyliger becoming leader of the opposition. Labour Party leader Dr Denzil Douglas became prime minister.
In the elections in March 2000, the SKNLP won all eight St Kitts seats, while in Nevis the CCM retained two and the NRP one.

Douglas and the SKNLP were again successful in the general election of October 2004, which was observed by a Commonwealth expert team. The ruling party took seven of the St Kitts seats, and the PAM one. The Nevis seats were again divided between CCM (two seats) and NRP (one).

Nevis: On Nevis, discontent with the federation grew through the latter 1980s, with increasing calls for separation, and strikes among sugar and other agricultural workers. Elections in Nevis in 1992 then ousted the NRP, replacing it with the CCM.

At the Nevis Island Assembly elections in February 1997, three seats were won by the CCM and two by the NRP, CCM leader Vance Amory retaining the premiership.

In October 1997, the five members of the Nevis Assembly voted to secede from the federation, triggering a referendum on Nevis which was held in August 1998. Only 62% of the voters of Nevis backed secession, which fell short of the required two-thirds majority. Prime Minister Denzil Douglas promised to work for greater autonomy for Nevis.
In the September 2001 Nevis Island Assembly elections, the CCM won four seats and the NRP one, and Amory was returned as premier. Another attempt at triggering a referendum on Nevis was initiated in June 2003.

The CCM’s long run of power was interrupted in the July 2006 Nevis Island Assembly elections, when NRP gained three seats and the CCM two. NRP leader Joseph Parry became premier.