00:11sure to greet you here from St. John's in Antigua and Barbuda you know that
00:17we've been following this closely it's the general elections here in Antigua
00:22snap elections actually that were called by the Prime Minister Gaston Brown in
00:27March just a few weeks ago he said that these elections would be happening the
00:32day had come April 30th and the polls are open people are coming to vote we
00:39are actually at the Villa primary school right now this is in the St. John's
00:45City West constituency actually the constituency for which Gaston Brown the
00:51PM is running for the Antigua and Barbuda Labor Party let's break what is
00:57happening down a little bit so let's recall Antigua and Barbuda has a
01:01parliamentary parliamentary government and the elections are actually choosing
01:07the 17 representatives from the 17 constituencies that make up the entire
01:14nation this is a system that is also shared by other countries in the
01:19Commonwealth and other Caribbean countries also island nations particularly in this
01:25case the 17 constituencies are up for grabs in the election we are at one of the
01:31key places for the Antigua and Barbuda Labor Party and the opposition at a
01:40national level the opposition party that will try to win the election as well is
01:46the UPP the United Progressive Party let's recall that Gaston Brown PM for the
01:53Labor Party has been in office since 2014 that he is seeking a fourth mandate and his entire
02:02mandate has been focused on different strategies particularly from the last years a possibility for Antigua to recover from the
02:14impacts of the pandemic for example let's remember
02:17Island nation very much dependent on tourism for example very much dependent on
02:22construction so as the entire world was impacted by the pandemic the same thing in
02:29particular impact where we're impacted in the island nations of the Caribbean in
02:36this case is Antigua but Antigua has seen a very important rebus in the economy a very
02:42important comeback for tourism it is at a very important high right now we've been talking to people they are
02:49saying that people are not only coming here for the cruises they are also coming back to see a couple
02:55of weeks so that is a good moment for tourism right now in the island so a good economic point
03:01there for Antigua construction is also at a very important
03:05moment so that is one of the reasons that important achievement in the economic scale and also the political momentum
03:16of the ruling party one of the reasons that analysts say could be the ones to explain why call snap
03:24elections right now another of those reasons that have been called by the prime minister as well quoted as some
03:31of the areas to consider in order to call this
03:35this elections are the impact of the global scene right now we were talking about the pandemic for example and
03:42how it impacted the island nations but now we also need to consider the impact of the global scene affected
03:49by the situation on the Middle East the war that US and Israel unleashed upon Iran and now it's affecting
03:56the whole economic structure of countries across the region but once again developing island nations are particularly affected by this
04:05world
04:05world events well in that case the leader of Antigua Gaston Brown has said that it was very important to
04:13renew the mandate to have a strong leadership because these times are going to call for strong decisions decisions that
04:21respect sovereignty also all these years for Antigua have been years of consolidating regional integration and that is one of
04:30the things that is at stake right now the opposition party has
04:35a proposition of change that is linked to different specific needs and the ruling party says that the economic recovery
04:46that we have seen that Antiguaans have seen is already having effects on those changes but particularly that these times
04:55are calling for an important consolidation of those ties of integration instead of in of individual
05:05attempts to negotiate for just a few sectors of the region so the question of integration for example is up
05:15for grabs the question of the tourism and not only its economic recovery but how does the income from the
05:24tourism is distributed across the nation those are some of the key issues that are being debated at this moment
05:33and today April
05:35April 30th general elections and Teegans are deciding what is going to happen we're going to stay here because the
05:41polls will be open until 6 p.m. and then afterwards the boats will be counted we will have a
05:48final result and you'll see everything here in tell us our English so stay tuned
06:05you
06:07you
Comments