North & Central America and Caribbean

Bahamas
Last reviewed: 27 June 2008

Country information

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POLITICS

Government

The Bahamas has a parliamentary system of government in which the Governor-General represents the titular head of state, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. The Honourable Arthur D Hanna has held the office of Governor-General since February 2006.

Elections were held on 2 May 2007, when former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, who had been in office from 1992 to 2002, led the opposition Free National Movement (FNM) to victory over the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) and their leader Prime Minister Perry Christie. The FNM won 23 seats as against 18 for PLP. In the previous election (2002) the FNM had won just 7 seats compared to the 29 seats for the PLP with 4 seats going to independent candidates. 111 candidates contested the 41 single-member constituency seats and there was a turnout of over 92.1% of the 150,684 registered voters.

In 2003 the then government appointed a bi-partisan Constitutional Commission with the mandate to provide a comprehensive review of the constitution and to consider the method of amending it or adopting a new one. The Commission presented its preliminary report to Prime Minister Christie in March 2006. It proposed that The Bahamas should become a democratic parliamentary republic and that a President be elected or appointed by the 2 houses of Parliament as Head of State of The Bahamas. The final report will be published after a period of public consultation.