House of Assembly of the Bahamas | |
|---|---|
| 14th Bahamian Parliament | |
| History | |
| Founded | 4 March 1729; 296 years ago (1729-03-04) |
| Seats | 39 |
| Elections | |
| First-past-the-post | |
Last election | 16 September 2021 |
| Meeting place | |
 | |
| Bahamian Parliament,Nassau,The Bahamas | |
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TheBahamas House of Assembly is the lower house of thebicameral legislature ofThe Bahamas, an island country in theCaribbean. It is housed at theBahamian Parliament Building inNassau, the national capital. The current Assembly was elected by the general election held on16 September 2021. The Assembly has 39 single-member constituencies and it uses thefirst-past-the-post system for elections. The Members of Parliament (MPs) serve five-year terms.[1][2]
The National Assembly's origins can be traced back to 1729 when a Representative Assembly was set up for what was then a British colony. It was formed with 24 members (16 forNew Providence, and four each forHarbour Island andEleuthera).[3] The first election after the country got independence from theUnited Kingdom was in1977, when it had 38 constituencies.[4] Since then, it has had a varying number of constituencies in the assembly. For the1987 and the1992 elections, it had 49 constituencies.[5][6] The current constituencies are based on the recommendations of the Constituency Commission in 2021.[7] The commission conducts a review of the electoral boundaries every five years[7] and makes recommendations to ensure that there is parity of numbers in each constituency.[8] It suggests that each constituency have around 5,000 voters with a margin of 500.[9] During boundary review, the commission tries to keep constituencies roughly the same size while considering other factors like "the needs of sparsely populated areas as well as geographic conditions". The constituency ofMICAL is the smallest considering the number of voters (1,392), whileGolden Isles is the largest with 7,391 voters.[10]
| Constituency | Island/ Island group | Electorate (2021)[11] |
|---|---|---|
| Bain Town and Grants Town | New Providence | 4,830 |
| Bamboo Town | 5,860 | |
| Carmichael | 6,041 | |
| Centreville | 5,218 | |
| Elizabeth | 5,709 | |
| Englerston | 4,923 | |
| Fort Charlotte | 4,978 | |
| Fox Hill | 6,041 | |
| Freetown | 4,869 | |
| Garden Hills | 5,321 | |
| Golden Gates | 5,490 | |
| Golden Isles | 7,391 | |
| Killarney | 7,112 | |
| Marathon | 5,368 | |
| Mount Moriah | 5,345 | |
| Nassau Village | 5,701 | |
| Pinewood | 5,373 | |
| Saint Anne's | 5,475 | |
| Saint Barnabas | 4,601 | |
| Sea Breeze | 5,704 | |
| South Beach | 5,625 | |
| Southern Shores | 5,617 | |
| Tall Pines | 6,243 | |
| Yamacraw | 5,268 | |
| Central Grand Bahama | Grand Bahama | 6,809 |
| East Grand Bahama | 6,561 | |
| Marco City | 6,287 | |
| Pineridge | 5,668 | |
| West Grand Bahama & Bimini | 5,700 | |
| Central and South Abaco | Abaco | 3,294 |
| North Abaco | 5,108 | |
| Mangrove Cay and South Andros | Andros | 2,338 |
| North Andros and Berry Islands | 2,727 | |
| Cat Island, Rum Cay & San Salvador | Multiple | 1,679 |
| Central and South Eleuthera | Eleuthera | 3,908 |
| North Eleuthera | 3,515 | |
| The Exumas and Ragged Island | Multiple | 3,601 |
| Long Island | Long Island | 1,835 |
| MICAL[a] | Multiple | 1,392 |
The first Representative Assembly in the Bahamas was established in 1729 and consisted of twenty-four members...
A boundaries report prepared by the previous commission in 2021 recommended to the governor general that no new constituencies be added, maintaining the status quo of 39 seats in the House of Assembly
Golden Isles in New Providence, the largest constituency as it relates to population, had 7,068 registered voters as of 10:44 a.m. on Monday ... Mayaguana, Inagua, Crooked Island, Acklins and Long Cay (MICAL) remains the constituency with the smallest population.
