For two decades, I've observed a political system that defies conventional democratic theory. In the Eastern Caribbean, where the distance between leader and citizen is measured in footsteps rather than formal protocols, governance takes on a uniquely intimate character.

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.

If the period 2004-2025 in the Commonwealth of Dominica were to be named after the political figure who dominated it in politics, it would be called ‘The Skerrit Era.’

I call it ‘resilience,’ it is a buzzword that is closely associated with climate change. It means ‘able to take a hit and keep standing or even bounce back.’ I also associate it with elections.

A hard crime wave has rocked Saint Lucia. Gun deaths have skyrocketed in the small Eastern Caribbean Island State and Prime Minister Phillip J. Pierre seems to be addressing the crisis with great candor, resolve, and skill. He has commented frankly on political division on the Police Force, for example in ways that would raise eyebrows in neighboring countries.

In Antigua and Barbuda’s January 2023 general election, the ruling Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party of Prime Minister Gaston Browne eked out the narrowest win possible, a simple majority of 1 seat. Out of seventeen seats in the Lower House of Representatives, Browne’s Labour Party has nine to eight spread across the Opposition. 

Forty-four years after the Grenada Revolution, the biggest lesson for Eastern Caribbean political leaders is the following: a revolutionary government is not feasible.