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Antigua (IPA: ) and Barbuda (IPA: ) are located in the middle of the Leeward Islands in the Eastern Caribbean, roughly 17 degrees north of the equator. Antigua and Barbuda are part of the Lesser Antilles archipelago with the islands of Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago to the south, Montserrat to the southwest, Saint Kitts and Nevis to the west and Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin and Anguilla to the northwest. HistoryPre-ceramic Amerindians were the first to inhabit the islands of Antigua and Barbuda in 2400 BC. Later Arawak and Carib Amerindian tribes populated the islands. The island of Antigua was originally named Wadadli by the natives. Christopher Columbus landed on his second voyage in 1493 and gave the island the name Antigua. Early settlements by the Spanish and French were succeeded by the English who formed a colony in 1667 by transporting Irish Catholic slaves to Antigua. Slavery, established to run the sugar plantations on Antigua, was abolished in 1834. The islands became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations on 1 November 1981, and Vere Bird became the first prime minister.
PoliticsPolitics of Antigua and Barbuda takes place in a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic monarchy, whereby the Prime Minister is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the Parliament. The Bicameral Parliament consists of the Senate (17-member body appointed by the governor general) and the House of Representatives (17 seats; members are elected by proportional representation to serve five-year terms). The last elections held were on 23 March 2004 for the House of Representatives (next to be held in 2009). The Antigua Labour Party got 4 seats, while the United Progressive Party got 13.
GovernmentSince 1949 the party system had been dominated by the personalist Antigua Labour Party. However the Antigua and Barbuda legislative election, 2004, saw the defeat of the longest-serving elected government in the Caribbean. The Prime Minister, Lester Bird, had been in office since 1994, when he succeeded his father, Vere Bird. The elder Bird had been Prime Minister from independence in 1981, and before independence had been Chief Minister of Antigua from 1960, except for the period 1971-76.
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