America

Bahamian voters bring former PM back to power

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-05-03 18:51

The opposition party led by former Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham won the parliamentary elections, the state-owned Broadcasting Corporation of Bahamas said on Thursday.

Ingraham's Free National Movement garnered 23 seats in the 41-seat House of Assembly Wednesday, with outgoing Prime Minister Perry Christie's Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) claiming the rest.

Ingraham, who was prime minister from 1992 to 2002, will form a cabinet to lead the Atlantic archipelago nation for the next five years.

About half of the Bahamian population of 320,000 are eligible to vote.

Ingraham's party successfully seized on scandals involving Christie's government, including former Immigration Minister Shane Gibson, who fast-tracked a residency permit for Anna Nicole Smith and resigned in scandal.

The U.S. pinup model lived in the Bahamas until her accidental drug overdose death in Florida in February.

Ingraham also accused Christie's party of allowing foreign investors and foreign workers to profit at the expense of Bahamians.