Elections In The Bahamas
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Elections In The Bahamas
Elections in the Bahamas take place in the framework of a parliamentary democracy. Since independence, voter turnout has been generally high in national elections, with a low of 87.9% in 1987 and a high of 98.5% in 1997. The current Prime Minister is The Hon. Philip Davis. The electorate is less than half of citizenry. Electoral system The electoral law of the Bahamas was passed on 31 December 1979 and was last amended in 1992. Elections are run by the Parliamentary Registration Department, headed by a Parliamentary Commissioner. Appointed by the Governor-General, the Commissioner is responsible for voter registration. There is also an Electoral Broadcasting Council, which is responsible for ensuring that media reports are fair and not biased towards any party.Nohlen, D. (2005), ''Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I'', p. 77, The country has a bicameral Parliament with a House of Assembly and Senate. House of Assembly The House of Assembly has 39 elected member ...
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United Bahamian Party
The United Bahamian Party (UBP) was a major political party in the Bahamas in the 1950s and 1960s. Representing the interests of the white oligarchy known as the Bay Street Boys, including Stafford Sands, it was the ruling party between 1958 and 1967.Dieter Nohlen (2005), ''Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I'', p. 73. It was led by Roland Theodore Symonette. History It was established in 1956 as the Christian Democratic Party to oppose the black-dominated Progressive Liberal Party, which had emerged as the largest party in the 1956 elections with six seats, although 22 MPs had been elected as independents. Following the 1958 general strike, it was renamed the United Bahamian Party.Plural Political Parties in the Bahamas - Pt. 2
''The Nassau Gu ...
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2002 Bahamian General Election
General elections were held in the Bahamas on 2 May 2002. The opposition Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) won 29 of the 40 seats in the House of Assembly to defeat the governing Free National Movement (FNM). Voter turnout was 90%.Dieter Nohlen (2005) ''Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I'', p82 Background In the 1992 election the Free National Movement came to power after defeating the then governing Progressive Liberal Party. Their leader Hubert Ingraham served as prime minister from 1992 until he announced his intention to step down as prime minister at the 2002 general election. Tommy Turnquest was then narrowly elected as the next leader of the FNM and would be the party's candidate for prime minister at the election. The FNM government suffered a setback in February 2002 when an attempt to amend the constitution was rejected in a referendum. The referendum had been contested between the two main parties after the PLP reversed their earlier support and ca ...
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1997 Bahamian General Election
Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 16 – Murder of Ennis Cosby: Near Interstate 405 (California) on a Los Angeles freeway, Bill Cosby's son Ennis is shot in the head in a failed robbery attempt. * January 17 – A Delta II rocket carrying a military GPS payload explodes, shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral. * January 18 – In northwest Rwanda, Hutu militia members kill 6 Spanish aid workers and three soldiers, and seriously wound another. * January 19 – Yasser Arafat returns to Hebron after more than 30 years, and joins celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli-controlled West Bank city. (→ Hebron Agreement) * January 23 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first female Secretary of State of the United States, after confirmation by the United States Senate ...
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Free National Movement
The Free National Movement (abbreviated FNM) is a political party in the Bahamas formed in the early 1970s and led by Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield. The current leader of the party is Michael Pintard and the current deputy leader is Shanendon Cartwright. The Free National Movement first came to power in 1992 after contesting numerous general elections without success. The party swept the 2017 general election, winning 35 of the 39 seats in the Legislature, but won only 7 seats in 2021, 28 seats less than it had won in the 2017 elections. History The party was established at the home of Jimmy Shepherd on Spring Hills Farms in Fox Hill in 1971. The Free-PLP had been a breakaway group of eight MPs from the governing Progressive Liberal Party. This group, which was known as the "Dissident Eight", included Arthur Foulkes, Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, Warren J. Levarity, Maurice E. Moore, Curtis McMillan, James (Jimmy) Shepherd, Elwood Donaldson, and George Thompson. Following meeti ...
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1992 Bahamian General Election
General elections were held in the Bahamas on 19 August 1992.Dieter Nohlen (2005) ''Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I'', p78 The result was a victory for the opposition Free National Movement (FNM), which received 55% of the vote and won 33 of the 49 seats in the House of Assembly, while the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) lost nearly half their seats, winning only 16. The elections marked the first change of government in the Bahamas since independence in 1973 as the PLP had dominated the country's politics since the latter days of colonial rule. Lynden Pindling, who had been head of government since 1967, was succeeded as prime minister by FNM leader Hubert Ingraham. Results References Bahamas General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above co ...
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Labour Party (Bahamas)
The Labour Party was a minor political party in the Bahamas. In the 1962 general elections it won a single seat, taken by Randol Fawkes. Fawkes retained his seat in the 1967 elections, in which the United Bahamian Party and the Progressive Liberal Party The Progressive Liberal Party (abbreviated PLP) is a populist and social liberal party in the Bahamas. Philip Davis is the leader of the party. History The PLP was founded in 1953 by William Cartwright, Cyril Stevenson, and Henry Milton ... won 18 seats each. Although the UBP had won more votes, Fawkes supported the PLP, allowing them to form a government. Fawkes retained his seat again in the 1968 elections, but the party did not contest the 1972 elections. The party reappeared to contest the 1987 elections, but received only 112 votes and failed to win a seat.Nohlen, D (2005) ''Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I'', p79 References Defunct political parties in the Bahamas Labour parties ...
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1967 Bahamian General Election
General elections were held in the Bahamas on 10 January 1967. The result was a tie between the Progressive Liberal Party and the United Bahamian Party, both of which won 18 seats. In a reversal of the previous election (in which the PLP received the most votes but the UBP won the most seats), this time the PLP received a lower share of the vote than the UBP, but was able to form the country's first black-led government with the support of the sole Labour Party (Bahamas), Labour Party MP Randol Fawkes.An Informal History of the Grand Bahama Port Authority, 1955-1985
Bahamian Fragments


Results


Elected MPs


References

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Progressive Liberal Party
The Progressive Liberal Party (abbreviated PLP) is a populist and social liberal party in the Bahamas. Philip Davis is the leader of the party. History The PLP was founded in 1953 by William Cartwright, Cyril Stevenson, and Henry Milton Taylor. The PLP was the first national political party in the Bahamas. The party governed for 25 straight years from 1967 to 1992, as well as from 2002 to 2007 and 2012 to 2017. Leading the party to its first victory in 1967 was Lynden Pindling, the country's first Prime Minister. Perry Christie was Prime Minister of the Bahamas between 2 May 2002 and the 2007 general elections, when the party was defeated by the rival Free National Movement (FNM) which won 23 seats of the 41 seats. The FNM installed leader Hubert Ingraham as the Prime Minister. After defeat and one of its MPs leaving the party since, the PLP held 17 of the 41 seats in the Bahamas National Assembly. In the 2012 general election, the Progressive Liberals won a solid m ...
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1962 Bahamian General Election
General elections were held in the Bahamas on 26 November 1962, the first under universal suffrage. Whilst the Progressive Liberal Party won the most votes, the United Bahamian Party won the most seats, largely as a result of gerrymandering.Dieter Nohlen (2005) ''Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I'', p73 Results Elected MPs References Bahamas 1962 in the Bahamas Elections in the Bahamas Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of its population. ... Election and referendum articles with incomplete results {{Bahamas-stub ...
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Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering, ( , originally ) defined in the contexts of Representative democracy, representative electoral systems, is the political manipulation of Boundary delimitation, electoral district boundaries to advantage a Political party, party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The manipulation may involve "cracking" (diluting the voting power of the opposing party's supporters across many districts) or "packing" (concentrating the opposing party's voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts). Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents. Wayne Dawkins, a professor at Morgan State University, describes it as politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians. The term ''gerrymandering'' is a portmanteau of a salamander and Elbridge Gerry, Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan distri ...
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Bay Street Boys
The United Bahamian Party (UBP) was a major political party in the Bahamas in the 1950s and 1960s. Representing the interests of the white oligarchy known as the Bay Street Boys, including Stafford Sands, it was the ruling party between 1958 and 1967.Dieter Nohlen (2005), ''Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I'', p. 73. It was led by Roland Theodore Symonette. History It was established in 1956 as the Christian Democratic Party to oppose the black-dominated Progressive Liberal Party, which had emerged as the largest party in the 1956 elections with six seats, although 22 MPs had been elected as independents. Following the 1958 general strike, it was renamed the United Bahamian Party.Plural Political Parties in the Bahamas - Pt. 2
''The Nassau Gua ...
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