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General elections were held in the Bahamas on 19 July 1977. [1] The result was a victory for the Progressive Liberal Party, which won 30 of the 38 seats. Voter turnout was 92.6%. [2]
Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Progressive Liberal Party | 35,090 | 54.74 | 30 | +1 | |
Bahamian Democratic Party | 17,252 | 26.91 | 6 | New | |
Free National Movement | 9,995 | 15.59 | 2 | –7 | |
Vanguard Nationalist and Socialist Party | 55 | 0.09 | 0 | New | |
Independents | 1,716 | 2.68 | 0 | –1 | |
Total | 64,108 | 100.00 | 38 | 0 | |
Registered voters/turnout | 71,295 | – | |||
Source: Hughes, Nohlen |
The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is a country in North America. It is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and 88% of its population. The archipelagic state consists of more than 3,000 islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, and is located north of Cuba and northwest of the island of Hispaniola and the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the U.S. state of Florida, and east of the Florida Keys. The capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes The Bahamas' territory as encompassing 470,000 km2 (180,000 sq mi) of ocean space.
The earliest arrival of people in the islands now known as The Bahamas was in the first millennium AD. The first inhabitants of the islands were the Lucayans, an Arawakan language-speaking Taino people, who arrived between about 500 and 800 AD from other islands of the Caribbean.
Inagua is the southernmost district of the Bahamas, comprising the islands of Great Inagua and Little Inagua. The headquarters for the district council are in Matthew Town.
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General elections were held in the Bahamas on 26 November 1962, the first under universal suffrage. Whilst the Progressive Liberal Party won the most votes, the United Bahamian Party won the most seats, largely as a result of gerrymandering.
General elections were held in the Bahamas on 10 January 1967. The result was a tie between the Progressive Liberal Party and the United Bahamian Party, both of which won 18 seats. In a reversal of the previous election, this time the PLP received a lower share of the vote than the UBP, but was able to form the country's first black-led government with the support of the sole Labour Party MP Randol Fawkes.
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General elections were held in the Bahamas on 10 June 1982. The result was a victory for the Progressive Liberal Party, which won 32 of the 43 seats.
General elections were held in the Bahamas on 19 June 1987. The result was a victory for the Progressive Liberal Party, which won 31 of the 49 seats.
General elections were held in the Bahamas on 19 August 1992. The result was a victory for the opposition Free National Movement (FNM), which received 55% of the vote and won 33 of the 49 seats in the House of Assembly, while the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) lost nearly half their seats, winning only 16.
General elections were held in the Bahamas on 14 March 1997. The result was a victory for the Free National Movement, which won 34 of the 40 seats. Hubert Ingraham was sworn in for a second term as Prime Minister on 18 March.
The United Bahamian Party (UBP) was a major political party in the Bahamas in the 1950s and 1960s. Representing the interests of the white oligarchy known as the Bay Street Boys, including Stafford Sands, it was the ruling party between 1958 and 1967. It was led by Roland Theodore Symonette.
The Labour Party was a minor political party in the Bahamas. In the 1962 general elections it won a single seat, taken by Randol Fawkes. Fawkes retained his seat in the 1967 elections, in which the United Bahamian Party and the Progressive Liberal Party won 18 seats each. Although the UBP had won more votes, Fawkes supported the PLP, allowing them to form a government. Fawkes retained his seat again in the 1968 elections, but the party did not contest the 1972 elections.
The Commonwealth Labour Party was a minor political party in the Bahamas.
The Bahamian Democratic Party was a political party in the Bahamas. It contested the 1977 general elections, in which it received 26.9% of the votes and won six seats, becoming the largest opposition party in Parliament. However, it did contest the 1982 elections.
The Workers' Party was a minor political party in the Bahamas. It contested the 1982 elections, in which it received only 31 votes and failed to win a seat.
Sir Cyril Stanley Smith Fountain is a Bahamian judge and lawyer.