The incumbent Antigua and Barbuda Labor Party (ABLP) of Prime Minister Gaston Browne returned to power resoundingly in Wednesday’s general elections.
Preliminary results in the low voter-turn-out poll indicate that the ABLP was poised to win 15 of the 17 seats in the Legislature.
Browne, who called the elections 15 months before they were constitutionally due, had predicted that the ABLP would win all seats.
The main opposition United Progressive Party (UPP), of Harold Lovell, seemed likely to earn no more than one seat, with Lovell himself losing his seat for the second successive election.
The last general elections in Antigua and Barbuda were held in 2014.
According to the Antigua and Barbuda Newsroom, one independent candidate and 52 other people were officially nominated to contest the poll.
Attorney-at-law Ralph Francis was the only independent candidate.
The ABLP was the only party to contest all 17 constituencies. The UPP contested 16 while its affiliate, the Barbuda Peoples Movement (BPM), contested one seat on hurricane-ravaged Barbuda.
The new Democratic National Alliance registered 13 candidates, the Go Green Party two, the Antigua Barbuda True Labor Party two and the Missing Link VOP one, the Newsroom said.
Both Browne and Lovell were sanguine of winning the elections.
“We are confident about not only winning the next general election but literally taking all the seats,” Browne had said before the vote.
Lovell had told reporters: “I am confident that the constituents have decided that I should be returned.”
