Prime Ministers of Dominica

The Prime Minister is the executive head of government in the Commonwealth of Dominica. Until 1978 when the former British colony gained independence, the head of government was referred to as the Premier. The Prime Minister is usually appointed by the President who makes his choice from the House of Assembly. The Prime Minister and the President then appoint the Cabinet of Ministers who serve with the Prime Minister and Members of parliament to run the country.

1. Edward Oliver Le Blanc

Edward Oliver Le Blanc was the second national leader of Dominica, having been preceded by Frank Andrew Baron as Chief Minister between 1961 to 1967. Born on October 3, 1923, in the village of Vieille Case, Le Blanc became a member of the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) in 1957 and ultimately became a parliamentarian in the House of Assembly in 1961.

He became the Chief Minister – which is equivalent to the prime minister or president – in January 1961 and ruled to March 1967. He became the Premier of Dominica in 1967 after the island became more autonomous under British rule. His leadership was characterized by uplifting the poor and his socialist policies became widely known in Dominica.

But Le Blanc suddenly resigned his position on July 27, 1974, without warning, and he withdrew from the public eye. He would not grant any media interviews and he refused to explain the reasons behind his sudden resignation as premier. He later returned to his village of Vieille Case where he died on October 29, 2004. He spent a total of 13 years as national leader of Dominica – 6 years as chief minister and 7 years as premier.

2. Patrick Roland John

Patrick Roland John was a colonel before he joined politics. Born in Roseau on January 7, 1938, John succeeded Edward Oliver Le Blanc as the national leader. Patrick John used to be the mayor of Roseau and the leader of the Waterfront and Allied Workers Union before his election to the House of Assembly in 1970.

He became a Premier in 1978, and when the United Kingdom granted independence to Dominica that same year, he became the Prime Minister but left office in 1979. He was forced to resign because he had become unpopular with the people and mass protests were a common occurrence during his time in office. John was succeeded by Oliver Seraphin as prime minister and later by Dame Eugenia Charles.

Patrick John, however, attempted in 1981 to overthrow the government of Eugenia Charles by hiring American and Canadian mercenaries affiliated with the white supremacist group Ku Klux Klan in an infamous coup codenamed Operation Red Dog. The coup failed flat because American federal agents in Louisiana, USA, intervened in time. John was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for the coup attempt but he served only five years before he was released.

Patrick John, who used to be a member of the Dominica national football club, later became a sports administrator after his release from prison. He became the president of the Dominica Football Association (DFA) in 1992 and he made DFA to join FIFA in 1994. He ceased to be the president of the national football league in 2006 and was inducted into the CONCACAF Hall of Fame in 2007. He became the DFA president again in 2008 but was banned by FIFA in 2011 for two years and fined $3,300 for alleged bribery and corruption.

3. Oliver Seraphin

Oliver James Seraphin was born on August 2, 1943, and succeeded Patrick John as the prime minister of Dominica from June 1979 to July 1980. The one-year-plus government of O.J. Seraphin – as he was usually called – was often referred to as an “interim government” and he was often referred to as an Acting Prime Minister after his time in office.

Seraphin was raised in Roseau and he attended the Roseau Mixed School and the Dominica Grammar School before proceeding to the United States to study at the Carnegie Institute. He thereafter studied in Cuba before returning to Dominica to work briefly in the insurance sector before joining politics under the Labour Party.

Seraphine served as Minister for Communication, Works and Housing from 1975 to 1979 and later as Minister for Agriculture, Lands, Fisheries and CARICOM Affairs under the government of Prime Minister Patrick John. He became the prime minister of Dominica after John stepped down, but was also forced to resign in 1980 when violent crowds opposed his government.

The devastation of Hurricane David occurred in August 1979 during the leadership of Oliver Seraphin, and he was credited with sourcing for foreign funds to rebuild much of Dominica and create homes and jobs for the impacted. He contested the general elections of 1980 but lost against Dame Eugenia Charles who succeeded him as prime minister.

4. Dame Eugenia Charles

Mary Eugenia Charles (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire – DBE) was born on May 15, 1919, to Josephine and John B. Charles in the village of Pointe Michel in Saint Luke Parish of Dominica. She was a descendent of freed slaves and attended the only girls’ secondary school of the time in Dominica – the Catholic Convent School.

She later became the first female lawyer in Dominica, and the first female prime minister in Dominica; and the second female prime minister ever in the Caribbean, the first being Lucina da Costa of the Netherlands Antilles. She was Dominica’s prime minister for 15 years (1980-1995), becoming the third longest-serving female prime minister in the world – after Indira Gandhi of India and Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka.

Eugenia Charles’ interest in law was ignited when she worked as an assistant to Alastair Forbes at the colonial magistrate court following her secondary school education. She proceeded to the University of Toronto in Canada where she obtained her LL.B degree in 1947, and she later attended the London School of Economics in the UK where she was called to the bar at the Inner Temple, London, upon her graduation. She returned to Dominica to set up her own law practice, specializing in property law.

Given her stand against violations of press freedom in the 1960s, Charles became one of the founding members of the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP). She was also the party leader from the 1970s to 1995. In 1970, she became a parliamentarian under the DFP and in 1975 became the opposition leader of the party in the House of Parliament. She contested the 1980 general elections and won against DLP’s Prime Minister Oliver Seraphin, emerging as the first female prime minister of Dominica.

Charles’s government faced two attempted coups in 1981: one from Frederick Newman, commander of the military, and the second from mercenaries hired by former Prime Minister Patrick John. Her administration succeeded the coups because they were thwarted with internal and external interventions. She, however, supported the United States invasion of Grenada under the administration of US President Ronald Reagan.

Charles served as prime minister for three terms in office and then retired from government in 1995. After her retirement, her DFP party lost the 1995 general elections to Edison James of the United Workers Party (UWP).

Eugenia Charles was awarded the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth in 1991. She never had any children of her own and was never married. She was dubbed the “Iron Lady of the Caribbean” after UK’s Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher.  She died on September 6, 2005.

5. Edison James

Edison Chenfil James was prime minister of Dominica from 1995 to 2000 on the platform of the United Workers Party (UWP). Born on October 18, 1943, in the village of Marigot, he succeeded Dame Eugenia Charles of the DFP.

James attended Dominica Grammar School and later proceeded to the University of East London where he obtained a B.Sc degree in Botany. He thereafter attended the University of Reading in the UK for an M.Sc in Biochemistry before heading to Imperial College, London, for a post-graduate diploma (PGD) in Crop Protection. He returned home to work at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and later the Dominica Banana Marketing Company as manager before venturing into politics.

James was one of the pioneer founders of the UWP in 1988 and also emerged as its national leader. He was voted into parliament in 1990 and became the opposition leader of the UWP. He vehemently criticized the DFP administration of Dame Eugenia Charles on several fronts, notably for the citizenship-by-a-fee programme.

The UWP contested the 1995 general elections and won, with Edison James becoming the prime minister of Dominica after defeating the incumbent Eugenia Charles. The new prime minister revived the ailing banana industry and diversified the island’s economy in numerous ways. James’ administration also embarked on capital projects such as the revitalization of schools and roads and houses as well as implementing scholarship programmes for students.

Yet it was faced with several allegations of corruption by the opposition. To justify itself as a transparent administration, James’ government called for the 2000 general elections six months before their due date. But the party lost the elections because the DFP and the DLP formed a coalition, ushering in the government of Prime Minister Roosevelt Douglas.

Following the loss of office in 2000, PM Edison James returned to the House of Assembly as opposition leader for the UWP, from where he mounted pressure on the new government to carry out various reforms. In 2005, James stepped down as opposition leader for Earl Williams to take over. He later became the president of the UWP for three years before being elected as a party leader again in 2012.

James is a Rotary Club member and very active with cricket both as player and administrator.

6. Rosie Douglas

Roosevelt Bernard Douglas succeeded Edison James as Prime Minister of Dominica in February 2000. He was born on October 15, 1941, and hailed from Paix Bouche constituency in Dominica. He became the prime minister of Dominica in February 2000 and served only eight months in office before his death on October 1, 2000.

Rosie, as he was fondly called by many, was the son of a wealthy farmer, conservative politician, and businessman. He attended secondary school in Roseau before proceeding to Canada to study at the Ontario Agricultural College. When his Canadian visa would not be processed in time, Douglas telephoned Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker who intervened for the visa to be expedited. Diefenbaker even dispatched MP Bruce Robinson to collect Douglas at the airport. He was 18 years old at this time.

Douglas finished from the Ontario Agricultural College and went to Montreal where he got admitted to study political science at Sir George Williams University. He got involved in politics at the university and soon joined the Tory Party, using his influence to advocate for better standards of living for black students living in Canada. He later became friends with Martin Luther King and Stokely Carmichael as well as other world leaders. He was also instrumental in establishing The Montreal Congress of Black Writers in the country.

After his graduation from Sir George Williams University, Douglas moved on to McGill University to study for his Masters programme. After he left Sir George Williams University, black students rioted at the institution over the living conditions and the riot escalated into police violence. Douglas was not at the riot but he supported the rioting students and he was charged with being the ring leader and instigator. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

While in prison, he wrote the book Chains or Change detailing his experience in prison vis-à-vis his political ideologies. After completing his prison term in 1976, Solicitor General Warren Allmand ordered his deportation and Douglas was deported from Canada in handcuffs and leg irons. He swore to return to Canada after he became prime minister of Dominica his country.

Douglas returned to Dominica and forged a friendship with the government of China, the Soviet Union, and Libya among others. He even befriended Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and became the executive chairman of World Mathaba, a group that supports guerrilla warfare and based in Libya. The group supported the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and the withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait among other things.

Ultimately, Douglas became a parliamentary member for his Paix Bouche constituency in 1985 under the DLP and went on to become the leader of the party in 1992. And in 2000, he won the general elections to become Dominica’s prime minister, ousting PM Edison James from office after forming an alliance with the DFP.

True to his words, Douglas visited Canada again on an official state visit and held bilateral talks with his Canadian counterpart. He also got the Chinese government to build an international airport with an MOU of US$300 million and worked with other world governments to transform Dominica into a technology-driven economy.

Prime Minister Roosevelt “Rosie” Douglas was found dead in his home in Portsmouth on October 1, 2000, after eight months in office as Dominica’s national leader. He was succeeded by Pierre Charles.

7. Pierre Charles

Pierre Charles was the prime minister of Dominica from 2000 to 2004 after succeeding Prime Minister Roosevelt Douglas who died in office after only eight months in service. Charles had always functioned as the acting prime minister for Roosevelt “Rosie” Douglas during the latter’s eight months rule, so he was appointed to fill that position when Douglas passed on.

Charles was from Grand Bay in Saint Patrick Parish and born on June 30, 1954.

He attended the Dominica Grammar School but finished his secondary education at St. Mary’s Academy, after which he attended the teacher training college. He worked as a teacher and community coordinator before deciding to join politics. Aged 25 in 1975, he was appointed a Senator into parliament; and in 1985, he became the MP for Grand Bay and retained that parliamentary position until his death in 2004.

Pierre Charles underwent angioplasty surgery – an operation to repair a damaged blood vessel or unblock a coronary artery – in 2003. Dominicans everywhere expressed serious concerns about his debilitating health and called him to step down, but he refused and continued to undergo medical treatments while carrying out his functions as prime minister.

Sometimes, Osborne Riviere stood in for him as acting prime minister when Charles went on medical leave. On January 6, 2004, Charles suffered a fatal heart attack while being driven home from a cabinet meeting and died at the age of 49 years. He was an honorary member of The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation before his demise.

8. Osborne Riviere

Francis Osborne Riviere functioned as acting prime minister for former Prime Minister Pierre Charles during the latter’s frequent medical leave abroad. Born in 1932, Riviere was a trade minister and foreign minister at various times under Charles’ administration until he was appointed to serve as acting prime minister following Charles’ death.

Riviere served as a substantive acting prime minister for two days after the death of Charles before Roosevelt Skerrit was appointed into office. Riviere retired from politics after Skerrit won the 2005 general elections and he died at the age of 85 on November 23, 2017. The former parliamentary member for the Colihaut constituency was honoured with the Sisserou Award of Honour in 2006.

9. Roosevelt Skerrit

Roosevelt Skerrit is the present Prime Minister of Dominica. Born on June 8, 1972, he was sworn in as the prime minister in January 2004 following the death of former Prime Minister Pierre Charles. A native of Vieille Case village, he had been representing the constituency in the House of Parliament since 2000. He also won the 2005 general election on the platform of the DLP.

Roosevelt Skerrit attended the New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, and the University of Mississippi, Oxford, in the United States.

As the current prime minister of Dominica, Skerrit holds several political portfolios and these include being the Minister of Finance, Minister of Education, Sports and Youths Affairs, as well as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He is the party leader for the DLP. In 2010, he was chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and equally served as chairman of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).