Every political party has a script for uncomfortable questions. When journalists ask about internal fractures: pivot to the ruling party's failures, invoke unity rhetoric, or dismiss the question entirely. The United Workers Party (UWP) of Dominica has perfected this deflection; and it is costing them everything.

On April 30, 2026, Antigua and Barbuda's general election reversed political fortunes overnight. The governing Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) captured 15 of 17 seats and 61% of the popular vote;  a 14-percentage-point swing from 2023. The once-rising United Progressive Party (UPP) collapsed from 8 seats to 2. Prime Minister Gaston Browne earned a rare fourth consecutive term. The Eastern Caribbean political power playbook delivered again.

Recently, a public debate erupted over one leadership attribute of Dr. Thomson Fontaine, political leader of Dominica's main opposition party, the United Workers Party (UWP).

On UWP-affiliated Q95 radio's flagship talk show, Matt in the Morning: The Hot Seat, callers assessed Dr. Fontaine as "not inclusive." He does not consult, one caller added. Several testified that Dr. Fontaine's UWP was not "on the ground," not in the field, not with the people.

The Eastern Caribbean (EC) is in deep trouble!

There is so little knowledge and understanding of its political model.

Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, the longest-serving EC Prime Minister (PM) of all time, was recently unseated, after 24 consecutive years in office in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). Ralph’s fall sent political leaders and commentators into a frenzy explaining his defeat. In their frenzy, they missed two things.

In The Eastern Caribbean Political Power Playbook: 10 Strategies Behind PM Skerrit's Success, the final chapter — "Quit While You're Ahead" — examines a strategy most Eastern Caribbean political leaders never master: controlling your own exit.

For two decades, I've documented a political system that breaks every rule in conventional democratic theory. In the Eastern Caribbean, the distance between leader and citizen is measured in footsteps, not formal protocols. Governance here is intimate, personal, and radically different from anything the textbooks describe.

In this era of The Matrix, fake news, and artificial intelligence, academics would be wise to verify before commenting how data they did not generate relate to the whole truth.

For sure. Dominica Prime Minister (PM) Roosevelt Skerrit is the Energizer Bunny of Dominica politics. He keeps going. He’s been PM for twenty years (2004-present) and counting!

In Opposition party politics in Dominica, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Recently, a new Opposition party launched, the United Progressive Party (UPP), the country’s fifth.

Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, the world’s 3rd largest country by total area recently hosted Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister (PM) of the Commonwealth of Dominica, the world’s 188th smallest country. It was the 20th anniversary of Skerrit officially establishing diplomatic relations with China in 2004. This was a most prestigious occasion for Dominica.

May 29, 1979, is the most famous date in Dominica’s political development—second only to November 3, 1978, the date of political independence from the United Kingdom.

Leadership types were probably always into bumper sticker definitions—brief, catchy sayings that can fit on a car bumper sticker. Before the digital era, there were books of quotable quotes, like, Your attitude determines your altitude. Now, thanks to the internet, those catchy definitions of leadership are everywhere. And…God help us all.

The overthrow of the first Prime Minister (PM) of Dominica Patrick John on June 21, 1979, represents an extreme case of what is sadly a very common occurrence in the relationship between the Dominica Prime Minister and voters—trouble.

After individuals apologized for Dominica’s first Prime Minister Patrick Roland John saying John was “consumed by his everlasting love for all people” at John’s funeral in 2021 and the main celebrant of John’s funeral mass said, “let history be the judge of his successes or failures,” Dominica’s political Opposition is whitewashing Dominica’s historical record.

Capacity to deliver the Eastern Caribbean (EC) political model is everything. Three-term Dominica Prime Minister (PM) Mary Eugenia Charles and six-term PM Roosevelt Skerrit could not set their endurance records without it. But how do such top performers build that capacity in the first place?

Capacity to deliver the Eastern Caribbean (EC) political model is everything. Three-term Dominica Prime Minister (PM) Mary Eugenia Charles and six-term PM Roosevelt Skerrit could not set their endurance records without it. But how do such top performers build that capacity in the first place?

Recently, Commonwealth of Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, fresh from hitting the twenty-year mark in office on January 8, 2024, waxed poetic, casting pearls of leadership wisdom before swine!

I watched it happen to the Dame, Mary Eugenia Charles, Dominica’s only successful Prime Minister (PM) before Roosevelt Skerrit. The first person to be popularly elected PM after Independence, in 1980. Re-elected in 1985. Re-elected in 1990, with a one-seat majority. And although she served for five more years, until 1995, Dominica had already moved on.

Dominica is entering uncharted territory with the succession of sitting Prime Minister (PM) Roosevelt Skerrit. Skerrit, the Eastern Caribbean Island nation’s seventh PM, was first appointed in 2004, as a take-over: not popularly elected PM.

Losing the 2000 general election turned Dominica’s United Workers Party (UWP) into a single-issue advocacy organization: all about the election system.