St Vincent and the Grenadines
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Country in the West Indies, in the eastern Caribbean Sea, part of the Windward Islands.
Government
St Vincent and the Grenadines has a multiparty parliamentary political executive. Its constitution dates from independence in 1979. The head of state is a resident governor general representing the British monarch. The governor general appoints a prime minister and cabinet, drawn from and responsible to the assembly.There is a single-chamber 21-member legislature, the House of Assembly, comprising 15 representatives elected by universal suffrage, and six senators, 4 appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister, and 2 on the advice of the leader of the opposition. The assembly has a life of up to five years. The country has no formal armed forces.
History
The original inhabitants were Carib Indians. Columbus landed on St Vincent in 1498. Claimed and settled by Britain and France, with African labour (see slavery), the islands were ceded to Britain in 1783.Independence
Collectively known as St Vincent, the islands of St Vincent and the islets of the northern Grenadines were part of the West Indies Federation until 1962 and acquired internal self-government in 1969 as an associated state. They achieved full independence, within the Commonwealth, as St Vincent and the Grenadines, in October 1979. It joined the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in 1974 and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) on its creation in 1981.Until the 1980s two parties dominated politics in the islands, the St Vincent Labour Party (SVLP) and the People's Political Party (PPP). The centre-left PPP was the oldest party, founded in 1952, and had its roots in the labour movement. It had been the dominant party in 1957–66, but it fell apart in the early 1980s . The centre-right SVLP was founded in 1955 and had strong middle-class support. It was the dominant party between 1966 and the mid-1980s and led the country to independence. Milton Cato, the SVLP's leader, was prime minister at independence but was challenged in 1981 when a decline in the economy and opposition to new industrial-relations legislation resulted in a general strike.
Cato survived because of divisions in the opposition parties, but in the 1984 general election the centrist New Democratic Party (NDP), led by an SVLP defector and former prime minister, James Mitchell, won a surprising victory and was to dominate the country's politics for the next 17 years. With the economy growing, Mitchell was re-elected in 1989, when the NDP won all the assembly seats, and in 1994 and 1988, but with a reduced majority. In August 2000, after popular protests against cronyism in the NDP, Mitchell stepped down as leader of the NDP in favour of the finance minister, who also replaced him as prime minister in October 2000, although Mitchell remained a cabinet minister.
The March 2001 parliamentary elections were won by the left-of-centre opposition Unity Labour Party (ULP), which had been formed in 1994 through the merger of the SVLP and a smaller party. The ULP's leader, Ralph Gonsalves, became prime minister and was re-elected in December 2005 when the ULP won 12 seats to 3 for the NDP. The ULP government has given priority to increased spending on health and education and has developed closer ties with Cuba and Venezuela.
| In 1991 representatives of Dominica, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada proposed federal integration of the Windward Islands. |
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