Dominica Enters Uncharted Territory In Planning The Succession of Its Current Prime Minister

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. He took over from Pierre Charles, who died in office. At the time, Skerrit was 31, the then-youngest PM in the world. He has since won five consecutive general elections. After his 2022 win, Skerrit announced his retirement for April 2025—after twenty-one consecutive years in office.

            April 2025 is sixteen months away. The Dominica Constitution mandates that there is always a PM. However, as in 2004, a fresh general election is not required to elect a successor. The Party is the gatekeeper of the PM job. The ruling Dominica Labour Party’s parliamentary caucus is likely to elect Dominica’s eighth PM from the remaining eighteen Elected Representatives—minus Skerrit, who’s the nineteenth. This means that Dominica’s next PM is already in the House of Assembly and most likely in the Cabinet, too.

            This leadership succession is uncharted territory because it is Dominica’s first planned, voluntary prime ministerial exit by retirement since Independence in 1978.

The closest to it was when Premier Edward Oliver Le Blanc retired in 1974 and was succeeded by take-over Premier Patrick John. But John’s transition failed. The yardstick used to measure his failure is the established, universal evaluation for long tenure in the British Parliamentary system (which Dominica follows). It says any tenure under six years is short. John lasted less than six years. He was deposed in 1979, five years after the transition. Then there was Mary Eugenia Charles. In 1995, she was the first post-independence retirement in office. Except hers was not voluntary—her Dominica Freedom Party was in decline when she walked away from the job and she was succeeded by an election PM, then-Opposition Leader Edison James.

            So what?

            Like most prime ministerial transitions, Dominica’s holds great promise: a new face for leader, new energy, and possibly new policy directions. However, my research finds that Dominica prime ministerial successions are riskier than other Eastern Caribbean countries. Only Saint Lucia and Grenada are in the same league with Dominica when it comes to risky transitions. Five of Dominica’s seven prime ministerial transitions have failed for lasting less than six years. Only Mary Eugenia Charles and Skerrit’s have succeeded.

            This explains why Skerrit’s ruling DLP and Government have moved so cautiously with transition plans. In December 2023, for the first time, Skerrit delegated Finance Minister. The transition in the remaining three critical jobs Skerrit holds—Elected Representative, Political Leader, and PM—will likely take place in the next sixteen months.

            The Dominica Opposition, meanwhile, is in denial about Skerrit’s planned, voluntary exit, saying in public that the transition is not going to happen. This makes it doubtful that they will play any significant role in this important transition.