Dominican DLP Retains Power In Election

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

10 May 2005

Somewhat overshadowed in the world's media by Tony Blair's British victory, Dominica also went to the polls last Thursday, when Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit and his Dominica Labour Party (DLP) defeated the United Workers Party (UWP) of Edison James 13 seats to 8.

The DLP's junior coalition partner, the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP), lost its two seats in Parliament, so that the DLP will govern on its own in future. Charles Savarin, the DFP's party leader, lost to the UWP's Norris Prevost, a former Tourism Minister on his fourth election bid and independent candidate Ronald Toulon beat Herbert Sabaroche, the Health Minister in the previous Roosevelt Skerrit administration.

The election was orderly, although there was some violence on the 4,000-acre Carib Indian reservation where the two main parties fought out a marginal seat.

Dominica is the most northerly and largest of the Windward Islands situated between Guadeloupe to the north, and Martinique to the south. It was occupied first by the Amerindians. After being sighted and named by Christopher Columbus in 1493, the island changed hands several times in the 18th century, finally becoming British in 1805. It was joined to the Leeward, then the Windward Island, and achieved separate status in 1960. Dominica became a British Associate State in 1967, and gained independence on November 3, 1978.

The potential of the offshore financial services sector as a vehicle for economic growth was recognized in the latter half of the 1990's. State-of-the-art legislation governing the formation of tax free offshore international business corporations was passed in 1996, that is the IBC Act of the 26th of June, 1996.

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