ST JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC) — The ruling Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) is the only party contesting all 17 seats at stake in the March 21 general election, according to the list of candidates released here by the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission (ABEC).

The ABEC said that at the end of Nomination Day on Monday that the ABLP — led by Prime Minister Gaston Browne — will contest the 17 seats on Antigua and Barbuda, while the main opposition United Progressive Party (UPP) will contest 16 seats.

There is only one independent candidate among the 53 people nominated on Monday to contest the election that Prime Minister Browne called more than a year before the constitutional deadline. In the 2014 General Election, the ABLP won 14 of the seats, with the remainder going to the UPP.

The lone independent candidate is attorney Ralph Francis, who will contest the lone seat in Barbuda, while the newly formed Democratic National Alliance, headed by former UPP legislator Joanne Massiah, will contest 13 seats.

The other parties, the Go Green Party has nominated two candidates, the same as the Antigua Barbuda True Labour Party and the Missing Link VOP, one.

Both Browne and UPP leader Harold Lovell, who will be leading the party into a general election for the first time, have expressed confidence in winning the election.

“We are confident about not only winning the next general election but literally taking all the seats,” Prime Minister Browne said after he was nominated for the City West constituency by Sir McLean Emmanuel, better known as “King Short Shirt” in the calypso arena.

“The work now begins. We are going down the final stretch and we are pretty sure we are in a position to take all 17 seats,” Browne told reporters.

But Lovell, who lost his seat in the 2014 General Election said, “I am confident that the constituents have decided that I should be returned.

“We are going to create a better society, an economy that is vibrant [and] driven by the local private sector…and we also have initiatives that will stimulate and encourage foreign investors,” he added.