A by-election was held on 9 July 2010 in
Dominica, to fill two seats in the
House of Assembly
House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnational level.
Historically, in British Crown colonies as the colony gained more internal responsible gove ...
that were declared vacant. The contested seats were both won by significant margins by the incumbent candidates, who were members of the
opposition
Opposition may refer to:
Arts and media
* ''Opposition'' (Altars EP), 2011 EP by Christian metalcore band Altars
* The Opposition (band), a London post-punk band
* '' The Opposition with Jordan Klepper'', a late-night television series on Com ...
United Workers' Party.
Following the results of the
2009 general election conducted on 18 December 2009, the
Dominica Labour Party
The Dominica Labour Party is a centre-left social-democratic political party in Dominica.
History
Founded in 1955 by Phyllis Shand Allfrey and Emmanuel Christopher Loblack, the Dominica Labour Party is the oldest political party in Dominica. N ...
won 18 of the 21 seats in the House of Assembly, with the United Workers' Party in the remaining three. Alleging election irregularities, the UWP members boycotted the Assembly. After two of the three UWP members,
Edison James
Edison Chenfil James (born October 18, 1943, in Marigot) is a Dominican politician who was the prime minister of Dominica from June 14, 1995, to February 3, 2000, as well as the member of parliament for the Marigot constituency from 1990. He gr ...
of
Marigot and
Hector John
Hector John (born 22 October 1970) is a Dominican politician in the United Workers' Party (Dominica), United Workers' Party (UWP). He was the Leader of the Opposition (Dominica), Leader of the Opposition, from 2010 to 2014 and was the youngest ...
of
Salisbury
Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath.
Salisbury is in the southeast of ...
, did not attend three consecutive sessions of the Assembly,
Speaker of the House
The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England.
Usage
The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hungerf ...
Alix Boyd Knights
Alix Boyd Knights is a Dominican politician and attorney who was the Speaker of the House of Assembly
House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnation ...
declared their seats vacant, and a
by-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
was scheduled to fill the vacancies.
The UWP argued that the Speaker had no legal authority to declare the seats vacant and that the by-elections were unconstitutional. James and John nevertheless ran in the by-election to retain their former seats. The Labour Party fielded the same candidates that ran unsuccessfully in the 2009 general election,
Bentley Royer in Salisbury and
Dayton Baptiste Dayton Baptiste (born 1965) is a Dominican politician in the Dominica Labour Party, and a former police officer in Antigua. He served briefly as an appointed senator in the Dominica House of Assembly in 2010, and has twice been an unsuccessful can ...
in Marigot. Both Royer and Baptiste had been appointed as senators in the interim and resigned these positions to run in the by-election. No candidates from other parties participated in the by-election.
Both James and John won the by-election by even greater margins than in the general election, leaving no change in the distribution of seats in the Assembly. John subsequently became the
Leader of the Opposition.
Results by constituency
References
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Elections in Dominica
2010 in Dominica
2010 elections in the Caribbean
By-elections
July 2010 events in North America
{{Dominican elections