Following a devastating loss in the April 30 general election, Antigua and Barbuda’s main opposition United Progressive Party (UPP) is at risk of fracturing into factions, according to sitting Prime Minister Gaston Browne. In an interview with local outlet Pointe FM, Browne outlined how growing internal discontent over party leadership and recent Senate appointments has laid the groundwork for a breakaway movement that will launch a separate political entity outside the UPP structure.
Browne, whose government secured a decisive victory over the opposition last month, claimed that disillusioned members of the UPP already see the once-competitive party as a politically damaged brand, no longer capable of mounting a serious challenge to the ruling administration. “I understand that they have plans to start a new party,” the prime minister stated during his remarks on the future of the country’s opposition landscape. “What is going to happen is that those individuals are going to coalesce and they’re going to see the UPP as a damaged brand and form a new party.”
The prime minister also cast doubt on the ability of current Opposition Leader Jamale Pringle to reverse the party’s sliding fortunes and hold its remaining members together. Pringle, who was the only UPP candidate to win a parliamentary seat in the April vote, retaining his All Saints East and St. Luke constituency, faces an uphill battle to quell internal unrest, Browne argued. “To hold the UPP together, it’s unlikely that Pringle can hold the party together, and they’re likely to splinter and create a new institution,” he said.
Drawing a parallel to his own political tenure, Browne recalled similar internal divisions that rocked the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) shortly after he took the party’s leadership. At that time, small breakaway factions split from the ABLP, but ultimately none of the new groups gained enough traction to displace the original party, he noted.
As of press time, the United Progressive Party has not issued any official public statement responding to Browne’s predictions of an imminent split.