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History and Government
History: By the time St Vincent was discovered by Christopher Columbus in January 1498, the island had been occupied for nearly 200 years – by Carib Indians from South America, who had subjugated the original Arawak Indian inhabitants. The island remained a Spanish possession until 1627, when it was granted to the British Lord Carlisle. However, the Caribs fought furiously to keep possession of it. In 1783, the Treaty of Versailles restored St Vincent to Britain, after the French had temporarily taken it. Carib resistance was finally crushed in 1795, after which the settlement of St Vincent proceeded on more conventional lines. During the late 19th and 20th centuries, St Vincent endured a series of natural disasters: in 1812, the first recorded eruption of the La Soufrière volcano, during which many lives were lost; in 1896, floods; two years later, a hurricane; and in 1902, the second eruption of La Soufrière, killing 2000 inhabitants.
The next eruptions, neither of which caused loss of life, occurred in the 1970s. Soon after World War II, the right to vote was extended to the entire adult population, after decades of restriction. This was an essential preparatory move towards independence – the key issue of the day. For small Caribbean islands like St Vincent & the Grenadines, a variety of proposals were studied during the 1960s, leading to St Vincent’s adoption of Associate Statehood with the UK in 1969. Under this agreement the island was internally self-governing, while London looked after foreign and defence matters. It also gave St Vincent the right to declare full independence at any time, which it finally did in October 1979. The viability of St Vincent as a nation state has been the subject of constant debate ever since.
In 1992, the New Democratic Party (NDP) administration of James Mitchell committed itself to the pursuit of a limited political and economic union with three other countries in the region – St Lucia, Dominica and Grenada. The plan is still officially on the agenda in all four states but little progress has been made towards its realisation. Frustrated by their inability to dislodge the well-entrenched NDP – which had, by this time, been in office for a decade – the main opposition party, the St Vincent Labour Party (SVLP), arranged an electoral pact and then a formal merger with two smaller socialist parties in 1994, to create the United Labour Party (ULP). Nonetheless, at the fiercely disputed general election of June 1998, the NDP retained eight seats in the House of Assembly, with the ULP taking the remaining seven. Mitchell continued in office until 2000, when he was replaced as premier by his former finance minister, Arnhim Eustace. After almost two decades in power, the NDP was finally ousted in March 2001, when the ULP won an absolute parliamentary majority. The new premier was ULP party leader Ralph Gonsalves, a former lawyer known to many as ‘Comrade Ralph’.
Government: St Vincent & the Grenadines is a constitutional monarchy in which executive power is vested in the British monarch, represented locally by a Governor-General who appoints a prime minister and cabinet of ministers. Legislative power is vested in the 21-member House of Assembly, which has 15 elected representatives and six nominees (Senators). The latter are appointed by the Governor-General – four on the recommendation of the prime minister, two on that of the leader of the opposition.
Copyright © 2003 Columbus Publishing Ltd.
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