Owen Arthur

Owen Arthur (born October 17, 1949, Barbados—died July 27, 2020, Bridgetown) was a Barbadian politician who served as prime minister (1994–2008) of Barbados. His economic policies significantly cut unemployment and won his party near-total control of the House of Assembly.

Arthur was raised in the parish (subregion) of St. Peter. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and history (1971) at the University of the West Indies (UWI) campus in Cave Hill, Barbados, and a master’s degree in economics (1974) at the university’s Mona campus in Jamaica. He began working in Jamaica in 1973, first as a research assistant at the university and later as an assistant economic planner with the government’s National Planning Agency. He was promoted to chief economic planner within five years. In 1981 Arthur returned to Barbados, and, during the next five years, he worked for the Barbadian Ministry of Finance and Planning (1981–83; 1985–86) and the Institute of Social and Economic Research of the UWI Cave Hill campus (1983–85).

Arthur’s political career began with his appointment to the Barbadian Senate in 1983. The following year, as a member of the governing Barbados Labour Party (BLP), he won election to the House of Assembly as representative from the constituency of St. Peter. In the May 1986 elections, the BLP was defeated by the Democratic Labour Party (DLP); although Arthur retained his seat, he contemplated leaving politics and, to that end, took a position as a part-time lecturer in UWI’s department of management studies later that year. In 1993 Arthur was appointed the parliamentary opposition leader, and, upon his party’s decisive victory in the September 1994 elections, he became prime minister.

Arthur instituted economic reforms that cut unemployment from more than 20 percent in 1994 to just over 9 percent in 2000. His administration boosted the agricultural and tourism industries and retained power with the BLP’s landslide victories in the 1999 and 2003 elections. During the 2003 campaign, Arthur had proposed a national referendum on a constitutional revision that would replace the British monarch (represented by a governor-general) with a president as head of state. The planned 2005 vote was delayed, and the issue was eventually set aside as other national priorities took precedence, such as the creation of a Caribbean Community Single Market and Economy. The 2008 general election gave the DLP a parliamentary majority, and Arthur stepped down as both prime minister and party leader, though he remained a member of the House of Assembly. In 2010 he regained leadership of the BLP, but, after his party’s poor showing in the 2013 election, he again stepped down. The following year he gave up his BLP membership.