History
The party first contested national elections for the tri-partite colony of Saint Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla in 1966, when they received 35% of the vote and won two seats. [3] Their support largely came from Anguilla and Nevis, where they picked up 53.5% and 51.9% of the vote respectively, and one MP from each island. [4] In 1967, the PAM won the Nevis Island Council election, winning 5 of 6 seats. [5] [6]
PAM saw their national representation reduced to a single seat in the 1971 elections, despite a modest increase in overall vote share, and an increase on the island of St Kitts from 27% to 36% of the vote. PAM held on to their seat in Nevis, but were affected by Anguilla having seceded from the tri-partite associated state (where PAM had previously won a seat). [4]
In the 1975 election, they lost all representation, [7] failing to win any representation on St Kitts and not standing candidates in Nevis for the first time. [4] PAM continues to only contest elections in St Kitts.
In the 1980 elections they won three seats, and were able to form a coalition government with the Nevis Reformation Party to oust the Saint Kitts and Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) from power for the first time since 1952. PAM leader Kennedy Simmonds led the country to independence in 1983, and the party won six of the eleven seats in the 1984 elections to remain in power. Constance V. Mitcham, the first women to sit in the national assembly, was elected as a PAM candidate in 1984 and served until 1995. [8] [9]
They again won six seats in 1989. The 1993 elections saw PAM and the SKNLP win four seats each. The PAM remained in power, but early elections were held in 1995, which saw the PAM reduced to just one seat (with Simmonds losing his). They lost their single seat in the 2000 elections, but regained it in 2004, with Shawn Richards winning constituency no. 5. In the 2010 elections the PAM won two seats.
Lindsay Grant served as Leader of the PAM until his resignation in July 2012. [10] After Grant's resignation, Shawn K. Richards and Eugene Hamilton contested for the party leadership in 2012; Richards came out the victor and became the fourth leader of the PAM and Hamilton became the deputy leader. In 2024, Natasha Grey-Brookes was elected leader, becoming the second woman to lead a party in the federation and the first woman to lead a party in St Kitts.
Team Unity
Prior to the 2015 general elections, the People's Action Movement formed a political alliance, known as Team Unity, with the Nevis-based Concerned Citizens' Movement (CCM) and the newly formed People's Labour Party, which was led by former SKNLP members Timothy Harris and Sam Condor. The alliance successfully won the 2015 and 2020 general elections, with PAM forming government with the other Team Unity members. This resulted in a number of PAM MPs serving in the Cabinet from 2015 to 2022, including party leader Shawn Richards serving as Deputy Prime Minister.
Team Unity ended in 2022, with PAM later forming an alliance with CCM called One Movement for the 2022 snap election. In this election, PAM lost three of their four seats and were returned to the opposition after Labour won a majority.
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