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. Electoral system The country's electoral law 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 members who are elected in single-member constituencies. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the archipelago's population. The archipelagic state consists of more than 3,000 islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, and is located north of Cuba and northwest of the island of Hispaniola (split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the U.S. state of Florida, and east of the Florida Keys. The capital is Nassau, Bahamas, Nassau on the island of New Providence. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes The Bahamas' territory as encompassing of ocean space. The Bahama Islands were inhabited by the Lucayan people, Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-Taino language, speaking TaĆno, for many centuries. Christopher Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making hi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gerrymandering
In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a 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 describes it as politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians. The term ''gerrymandering'' is named after American politician 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 district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. The term has negative con ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 90.2%.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 c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1997 Bahamian General Election
General elections were held in the Bahamas on 14 March 1997.Dieter Nohlen (2005) ''Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I'', p78 The result was a victory for the Free National Movement, which won 34 of the 40 seats. Hubert Ingraham was sworn in for a second term as Prime Minister on 18 March. Inter-Parliamentary Union Results Elected MPs References Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. ...
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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, led by Sir Cecil Wallace Whitfield. The current leader of the party is Michael Pintard and his deputy Peter Turnquest. It dominated the general election held on 10 May 2017, winning 35 of the 39 seats in the Legislature, but was defeated in 2021, losing 28 seats. History The FNM was established at Jimmy Shepherd's house on Spring Hills Farms in Fox Hill in 1971. The Free-PLP were a breakaway group of eight MPs from the then governing Progressive Liberal Party. This group, which was known as the "Dissident Eight", included Cecil Wallace Whitfield, Arthur Foulkes, Warren J. Levarity, Maurice E. Moore, Curtis McMillan , James (Jimmy) Shepherd, Elwood Donaldson and George Thompson. Following meetings held at Spring Hill Farms, the FNM officially became a political party in October 1971, with Cecil Wallace Whitfield as its leader. The other group, the UBP, was one o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 ruling Progressive Liberal Party won only 44.7% of the popular vote and 16 seats in the House of Assembly. The opposition Free National Movement won 55% of the popular vote and 33 of the 49 seats. Results References Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ... 1992 in the Bahamas Elections in the Bahamas Election and referendum articles with incomplete results {{Bahamas-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 Tay ... 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 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 MP Randol Fawkes. Bahamian Fragments Results Elected MPs References {{Bahamas-stub[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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. 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 majority in a landslide ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ... Election and referendum articles with incomplete results {{Bahamas-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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, 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 Guardian'',7 December 2015 [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Parliamentary Democracy
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the legislature, typically a parliament, to which it is accountable. In a parliamentary system, the head of state is usually a person distinct from the head of government. This is in contrast to a presidential system, where the head of state often is also the head of government and, most importantly, where the executive does not derive its democratic legitimacy from the legislature. Countries with parliamentary systems may be constitutional monarchies, where a monarch is the head of state while the head of government is almost always a member of parliament, or parliamentary republics, where a mostly ceremonial president is the head of state while the head of government is regularly from the legislature. In a few parliamentary republics, among ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |