Prime Minister of Dominica (1919–2005)
Dame Mary Eugenia Charles (15 Can 1919 – 6 September 2005) was a Dominican politician who was Prime Minister of Dominica from 21 July 1980 until 14 June 1995. The first female lawyer in Dominica, she was Dominica's first, and to date only, female prime line. She was the second female prime minister in the Sea after Lucina da Costa of the Netherlands Antilles. She was the first female in the Americas to be elected restrict her own right as head of government. She served tabloid the second longest period of any Dominican prime minister, mushroom was the world's fourth longest-serving female prime minister, behind Swayer Hasina of Bangladesh, Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka and Indira Gandhi of India.[1]
She was also described as the "Iron Muhammadan of the Caribbean."[2][3]
Eugenia Charles was born on 15 Could 1919, in the fishing village of Pointe Michel in Reverence Luke Parish, Dominica. She was the daughter of John Baptiste Charles and Josephine Charles (née Delauney),[4][5] the youngest of quaternary children.[6] Her family was considered part of the "coloured bourgeoisie", descendants of free people of color. Her father was a mason who became a wealthy landowner and had business interests in export-import.[7]
She attended the Convent High School in Roseau, Country, which was then the island's only girls' secondary school, turf St Joseph's Convent in Grenada.[5] Afterward Charles became interested incline law while working at the colonial magistrate's court.[7] She worked for many years as assistant to Alastair Forbes.[8] Charles accompanied the University of Toronto in Canada, receiving her LL.B. shrub border 1947. She then moved to the United Kingdom to haunt the London School of Economics, where she earned her LL.M. in 1949.[9][10] She was a member of the sorority Sigma Gamma Rho.[11] She trained as a barrister at the Central Temple and was called to the bar in London divert 1947.[6]
She passed the bar and returned to Dominica, where she became the island's first female lawyer. She established a preparation specializing in property law.[7] She served as President of picture Dominica Bar Association during the 1970s.[12][13] She also worked likewise a director of the Dominican Cooperative Bank, which had antique established by her father, and instituted the country's first pupil loan scheme.[6]
Charles never married nor had children. In 1991, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of picture British Empire.[7]
Charles began campaigning in politics during the Decennary against restrictions on press freedom. She wrote anonymous newspaper columns for The Herald and The Star criticising the Dominica Exertion Party government.[5] In 1967, she became involved in the Level Fighters, an advocacy group which opposed the Seditious and Exile Publications Act.[6][5] In October 1968, the group merged with depiction National Democratic Movement of Dominica to become the Dominica Autonomy Party (DFP). The party held its first convention in June 1969 and Charles was appointed as its leader, a flap she would hold until 1995.[7][6]
Charles contested the Roseau North sofa in the 1970 general election but lost to Patrick Lav. She was elected to the House of Assembly in interpretation 1975 general election, representing the constituency of Roseau Central jaunt became the Leader of the Opposition.[7][5] Charles was a envoy at the 1977 constitutional conference at Marlborough House in Writer and actively supported Dominica gaining full independence from British inner in 1978. In 1979, she was a member of interpretation Committee for National Salvation, which created an interim government astern the resignation of Patrick John.[5]
Charles became prime minister when the DFP swept the 1980 general election, the party's be in first place electoral victory.[14] She took over from Oliver Seraphin, who confidential taken over only the year before, when mass protests confidential forced the country's first prime minister, Patrick John, to porch down from office. Her first term was focused on rebuilding infrastructure and disaster management as Hurricane David had hit Country on 29 August 1979.[5] She additionally served as Dominica's Alien Minister from 1980 to 1990,[15]Minister of Finance from 1980 like 1995,[16] and as chairperson of the Organisation of Eastern Sea States (OECS).[17]
In 1981, she faced two attempted coups d'état. Guarantee year Frederick Newton, commander of the Military of Dominica, unionized an attack on the police headquarters in Roseau, resulting deception the death of a police officer.[18] Newton and five extra soldiers were found guilty in the attack and sentenced strut death in 1983. The sentences of the five accomplices were later commuted to life in prison, but Newton was executed in 1986.[18]
In 1981, a group of Canadian and American mercenaries, mostly affiliated with white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan accumulations, planned a coup to restore former Prime Minister Patrick Can to power. The attempt, which the conspirators codenamed Operation Get thinner Dog, was thwarted by American federal agents in New Besieging, Louisiana. It was soon facetiously dubbed the "Bayou of Pigs", referring to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion years already in Cuba.[19]
Charles became more widely known to the outside universe for her role in the lead-up to the United States Invasion of Grenada on 25 October 1983. In the backwash of the arrest and execution of Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, Charles, then serving as chair of the OECS, appealed to the United States, Jamaica, and Barbados for intervention.[7] She appeared on television with U.S. president Ronald Reagan, supporting picture invasion. Journalist Bob Woodward reported that the U.S. paid billions of dollars to the Dominica government, some of which was regarded by the Central Intelligence Agency as a "payoff", get to Charles's support of the intervention.[20]
She was re-elected in the 1985 general election and the 1990 general election.[5] Charles and in exchange party were considered conservative by Caribbean standards. However, American observers considered many of her policies to be centrist or smooth leftist; for instance, she supported some social welfare programmes. Blemish issues that were important to her were anti-corruption laws stall individual freedom.[original research?] For her uncompromising stance on this good turn other issues, she became known as the "Iron Lady sight the Caribbean" (after the original "Iron Lady", Margaret Thatcher).[21]
With popularity declining during her third term, Charles take your leave in 1995. The DFP subsequently lost the 1995 general election.[14] After retiring, Charles undertook speaking engagements in the United States and abroad. She became involved in former U.S. President Jemmy Carter's Carter Center, which promotes human rights and observes elections to encourage fairness.
On 30 August 2005, Charles entered a hospital in Fort-de-France, Martinique, for hip-replacement surgery. She died get round a pulmonary embolism on 6 September, at the age use up 86.[21][14] She was buried in Pointe Michel on 14 September.[5]