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Dickon Mitchell – a newcomer ousts longtime prime minister in Grenada elections
AP | A newcomer to politics has ousted Grenada’s longest serving prime minister in a tight general elections on the eastern Caribbean island-nation.
Dickon Mitchell’s National Democratic Congress party obtained 52 percent of votes compared with 48 percent for Keith Mitchell’s New National Party, according to preliminary results. The incoming party won 9 of 15 constituencies.
Keith Mitchell became prime minister in 1995 and served until 2008, then won again in 2018 in a landslide. He had asked voters this year to give him “one for the road.”
Keith Mitchell, 75, is a former professional cricketer and a statistician who once worked with the U.S government but returned to Grenada following the 1983 U.S. invasion that occurred just days after the island-nation’s pro-Marxist leader was executed.
The incoming prime minister is a 44-year-old attorney and former teacher who became leader of his party in October. He has pledged to improve health care, decrease unemployment and poverty, build affordable housing and boost education.