Winston Baldwin Spencer

1948—

Politician

In 2004 Winston Baldwin Spencer became the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, the Caribbean island nation that is one of the most prosperous in the region. As leader of the United Progressive Party, Spencer had headed the official opposition in parliament for the past sixteen years, and when his party achieved victory in the 2004 elections, it marked the end of one of the world's longest elected dynasties: the Vere Cornwall Bird and Lester Bird father-and-son duo had held the reigns of government in Antigua and Barbuda almost continuously since 1960.

In an interview with Eucelia Hill of the Antigua Sun, Spencer described himself as "an ordinary citizen of Antigua & Barbuda, who had a very humble and simple upbringing in a very rough community, the Gray's Green community." Adjacent to St. John's—the capital of Antigua and Barbuda and Antigua's largest city—Gray's Green and nearby Gray's Farm are rundown slums known for a long history of official neglect, poverty, crime, and assorted social ills. Spencer was born in 1948, and he and his three siblings were raised by a single mother in dramatically severe circumstances. "I can recall I had to attend school on a couple of occasions without shoes," he told Hill.

Spencer's grandmother was active in the trade union movement in the 1930s, which gained momentum in many Caribbean nations as a means to challenge an unfair system whereby a handful of elites—first the British, and later mixed-race citizens—controlled the economy while the majority of blacks—who were descendants of slaves brought in the 1700s—lived in abject poverty in places such as Gray's Green, where there was no running water in homes. The Antigua Trades and Labour Union (ATLU) was formed in 1939, and it moved from improving workers' rights on the island's sugar and banana plantations to spearheading the push for greater self-rule for Antiguans.

Spencer was enrolled in the ATLU's youth group by his grandmother, and he gave his first political speech at the age of eleven in 1960 for the ATLU's offshoot, the Antigua Labour Party (ALP). "I don't remember what I said, but I vividly recall how the crowd responded," he told Hill. "It was a tremendous atmosphere." In that year's general election, Vere Cornwall Bird led the ALP to victory and began the first of two long stints as prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda.

Spencer was working as a reporter for the official ATLU newspaper, the Worker's Voice, when internal disagreements in the ALP resulted in the formation of the Progressive Labour Movement (PLM). Spencer was initially devastated by the split, which he recalled "came as a terrible shock for me," he told Hill. "Here I was thinking that this was such a formidable organisation with everybody working together with no indication that anything was wrong. For several days thereafter, I became totally confused." In the end, he joined the PLM.

Spencer left Antigua when he won a place at the Coady International Institute in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, which was affiliated with St. Francis Xavier University located in the same Canadian Maritime province. Coady offered a social leadership training course, and after completing that Spencer went on to Ruskin College at Oxford University for a two-year course in labor and economic studies. Returning to Antigua in 1973, he worked for the Antigua and Barbuda Workers Union (AWU). When the trade union became allied with the PLM, he became its assistant general secretary and then first vice president. He ran for a seat in Antigua and Barbuda's seventeen-member House of Representatives in 1980 and in 1984, but lost both times. By that point, Antigua and Barbuda had achieved independence from Britain, though it remained in the British Commonwealth of Nations. Technically, Antigua and Barbuda is a constitutional monarchy with the British sovereign as the head of state: voters choose members of the lower house of parliament to represent them, and a governor-general, who is appointed by the monarch, selects members of parliament's upper house, the Senate.

In 1989 Spencer, who ran as the only opposition candidate, was finally elected to parliament from St. John's Rural West. Three years later, the PLM merged with two other parties to create the United Progressive Party (UPP), and Spencer became its leader. With the exception of a five-year period in the 1970s, Bird and the ALP had been in power continuously since 1960 despite calls for change. In 1993 Bird passed the reins of power over to his son Lester, who led the ALP to victory in elections the following year. Over the years, however, charges leveled against the Birds and other ALP leaders included corruption, cronyism, nepotism, and even arms smuggling and statutory rape, and these tarnished the ALP's reputation and finally served to oust the party in elections held on March 23, 2004. Spencer's UPP won twelve out of the seventeen seats in the House of Representatives after an impressive voter turnout of 90 percent.

The election results prompted celebrations on the streets of St. John's, and similarly jubilant crowds cheered Spencer's swearing-in on March 24. "We must be mindful of the fact that we have a country to build back, and the respect and dignity of Antigua and Barbuda must be restored in the quickest possible time," he told readers of the Antigua Sun, according to Mark Wilson of the Daily Telegraph. One of his first tasks was to revive Antigua and Barbuda's tourism industry, which was a mainstay of its economy but had suffered serious decline since 2001.

At a Glance …

Born Winston Baldwin Spencer on October 8, 1948, in St. John's, Antigua; son of Joyce Martin; married Jacklyn Potter, 1992; children: Juno and J'nai. Politics: United Progressive Party. Education: Earned diploma in social leadership from the Coady International Institute, Canada, and degree in labor and economic studies from Ruskin College, Oxford University, 1973; also earned diploma in labor and Industrial Relation Systems from Oslo University.

Career: Worker's Voice, newspaper reporter, mid-1960s; Antigua and Barbuda Workers Union, assistant general secretary and first vice president; Caribbean Maritime and Aviation Council, president; elected to Antigua's House of Representatives from St. John's Rural West, 1989; United Progressive Party, 1992, founding member and party chief; prime minister, 2004—.

Memberships: King George Fifth Restoration Society (ex-officio and adviser), Empire Football Club (past president), Antigua Football Association.

Addresses: Office—Office of the Prime Minister, Queen Elizabeth Hwy., Saint John's, Antigua and Barbuda.

During his five-year term in office, Spencer worked to end the island nation's reputation as a haven for money-laundering and drug trafficking by pushing parliament to enact tougher laws. He pointed out, however, that there were only so many East Caribbean dollars, its unit of currency, in the national treasury. He explained to Ian Edwards of the Americas, "One has to be more concerned about how you are going to provide the basic necessities of life for your people…. [Y]ou would want to expend certain monies to at least ensure that you provide certain basic needs for your people [and] you have to give that priority—as against spending millions in purchasing Coast Guard vessels for instance, but that's very important."

Spencer is married and the father of two children. His wife, Jacklyn, was one of fourteen children and also grew up in the Gray's Green/Gray's Farm area. Their 1992 marriage followed an eleven-year courtship, during which time Spencer convinced her to return to Gray's Farm to live. "I did not question him really, I just asked why," she told Hill. "He said he had to be the prime minister before he died because he wanted to serve the people of Antigua & Barbuda."

Sources

Periodicals

Americas, November-December 2006, p. 26.

Antigua Sun, November 3, 2003; April 19, 2004.

Daily Telegraph (London), March 25, 2004, p. 16.

Online

"Hon. Winston Baldwin Spencer," Government of Antigua and Barbuda, http://www.ab.gov.ag/gov_v2/government/shared/bio_balwinspencer.html (accessed May 16, 2008).

"2008 New Year's Address," Government of Antigua and Barbuda, http://www.ab.gov.ag/gov_v2/government/speeches/2007/speech_2007dec31_id1.html (accessed May 16, 2008).

—Carol Brennan