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1 1 (January 24, 2018)

handle is hein.crs/govebaf0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congress onal Research Service Updated January 24, 2018 The Bahamas Political and Economic Environment The Bahamas, a Caribbean nation of some 700 islands off the southeast coast of the United States, has been a stable parliamentary democracy since its independence from the United Kingdom (UK) in 1973. The country's bicameral legislature has a 39-seat House of Assembly directly elected for five-year terms and a 16-member appointed Senate. Since independence, the political scene has been dominated by two political parties, the center-left Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) and the center-right Free National Movement (FNM). The PLP was formed in 1953 as an opposition party to the United Bahamian Party (UBP), which governed the Bahamas when the country was under British rule. In 1967, the PLP won control of the government and oversaw the country's independence from the UK. It ruled continuously from 1967 until 1992 under the leadership of Lynden Pindling, commonly referred to as the father of the nation. The FNM was formed in 1971 by former members of the UBP and dissidents from the PLP. Under the leadership of Hubert Ingraham, the FNM won the 1992 general elections, governing until 2002. The PLP returned to power in 2002 under the leadership of Perry Christie, lost in 2007 to the FNM (still led by Hubert Ingraham), and won again in 2012, with Perry Christie as prime minister. In the most recent elections of May 2017, the FNM returned to power in a landslide, capturing 35 House of Assembly seats compared to 4 for the PLP, with new FNM party leader Hubert Minnis becoming prime minister. At the outset of 2017, many observers thought it was likely that the PLP under Christie would win a majority. This was largely because of disarray within the FNM, which faced a chaotic party leadership challenge in 2016. Once the election was called, however, observers predicted the elections would be close, in large part because of the growing unpopularity of the PLP due to the country's difficult economic environment. Ultimately, the poor state of the economy along with rising crime and controversies associated with the Chinese-financed Baha Mar resort in the capital of Nassau led to the PLP's thrashing at the polls. Problems with the Baha Mar project included construction delays, the use of Chinese laborers, and reported sweetheart business deals. With a per capita income level approaching $27,000 (2017), the Bahamian economy is classified by the World Bank as high income. Tourism and related construction and financial services are the key sectors for the service-based economy. The Bahamian economy was hard-hit by the global financial crisis and registered economic contractions of 2.3% and 4.2% in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Although economic growth returned from 2010 through 2012, the economy stagnated after that, contracting 1.7% in 2015 and 0.2% in 2016, according to the International Monetary Fund. Economic growth returned in 2017 by an estimated 1.6%, spurred by strong U.S. economic performance and by the phased opening of the Baha Mar project. Source: CRS. The Bahamas at a Glance Population: Area (square miles): GDP (current prices): Real GDP Growth: Per Capita Income: Life Expectancy: Key Leaders: 372,000 (2017, IMF) 5,359, slightly smaller than Connecticut (CIA) $9.2 billion (2017 est., IMF) 1.6% (2017 est., IMF) $24,631 (2017 est., IMF) 75.6 years (2015, UNDP) Dr. Hubert Minnis, Prime Minister; Darren Henfield, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sources: International Monetary Fund (IMF); Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). High rates of violence have afflicted the Bahamas for several years. A May 2017 Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) study on violence in the Caribbean reported that the murder rate in the Bahamas was one of the highest in the region (IDB, Restoring Paradise in the Caribbean, Combatting Violence with Numbers, May 2017). The study

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