Dr Qwominer William Osborne, OBE (usually referred to as Q.W. Osborne or William Osborne) was a British Virgin Islander politician and physician. His political career started in the 1963 general election, when he was elected to the seat for the 5th District. Prior to 1967 elections to the Legislative Council of the British Virgin Islands were on a non-party basis, and legislators who were elected governed collectively. However, the 1967 general election introduced

party politics A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...

into the British Virgin Islands, and Osborne founded and became leader of the

VI Democratic Party The VI Democratic Party (VIDP or DP) is a nodefunctpolitical party of the British Virgin Islands. It was originally formed by Dr Q. William Osborne during the first session of the Legislative Council of the British Virgin Islands under the ne ...

. Ultimately that party would come second in the election to the BVI United Party led by

Lavity Stoutt Hamilton Lavity Stoutt (7 March 1929 – 14 May 1995) was a British Virgin Islander politician and the first and longest serving Chief Minister of the British Virgin Islands. He won five general elections (1967, 1979, 1986, 1991 and 1995) ...

. Osborne thereby became the first ever Leader of the Opposition in the British Virgin Islands. In the subsequent 1971 general election he led his party to the highest number of overall seats, but short of an outright majority. Faced with potentially ruling as a

minority government A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and Cabinet (government), cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or Coalition government, coalition of parties do ...

, he formed a coalition with independent candidate

Willard Wheatley Willard Wheatley MBE (16 July 1915 – 22 January 1997) was a British Virgin Islands educator and politician who served two consecutive terms as the Chief Minister of the British Virgin Islands from 1971 to 1979. He was the second ever Chief Min ...

. However, Wheatley required that he be made

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

, and Osborne agreed. Osborne was appointed Minister for Natural Resources and Public Health. The subsequent administration appeared not to be a happy one, possibly driven apart by Osborne's own desire to be Chief Minister. Wheatley removed Osborne from his Ministerial post in 1972. The VI Democratic Party splintered, and officially offered no contestants in the 1975 general election. Osborne stood as an independent candidate and was re-elected. Willard Wheatley threw his lot in with the BVI United Party and won, forming a new coalition government and remaining as Chief Minister. Osborne ran again in the 1979 general election, but was easily defeated by

Cyril Romney Cyril Brandtford Romney (1 March 1931 – 19 July 2007) was a British Virgin Islander politician who served as Chief Minister of the British Virgin Islands from 1983 to 1986. He also served as a member of the Legislative Council of the British V ...

and retired for the first time. In that election he was the only candidate who stood for the VI Democratic Party (by then referred to simply as the Democratic Party), and after his defeat the party ceased to exist. Osborne would later come out of retirement to run one more time, in 1986, but garnered barely any electoral support and lost by a wide margin.

Electoral history

Political office

Footnotes

British Virgin Islands physicians British Virgin Islands politicians Leaders of the Opposition (British Virgin Islands) Officers of the Order of the British Empire VI Democratic Party politicians {{BritishVirginIslands-politician-stub