Today, January 6, marks the Anniversary of the death of Pierre Charles, who served as Dominica’s Prime Minister from 2000 to 2004.
Charles was a Member of Parliament for Grand Bay from 1985 until his death.
Charles died on the evening of January 6, 2004, following a cabinet meeting. He had been suffering from a heart condition and had complained of chest pains.
He was the second prime minister to die in office in three years, having taken over the reins of power after the sudden death of Prime Minister Roosevelt Douglas in 2000.
The late prime minister served as Minister of Communications and Works in the Roosevelt Douglas-led cabinet, and deputy leader of the Dominica Labour Party (DLP).
He was born in Grand Bay and began his high school education at the Dominica Grammar School. He went to the St. Mary’s Academy before continuing his studies at the teacher’s college. Following which, he served as a teacher and community organizer before entering politics.
In 1979, at 25, Pierre was appointed a Senator in parliament.
In 1985, he contested the general elections on a Dominica Labour Party (DLP) ticket and won, although the DLP lost the election to the Eugenia Charles-led Dominica Freedom Party (DFP).
He remained MP of that constituency for 15 years.
When the DLP, in coalition with the DFP, came to power in 2000 under Rosie Douglas, Charles was made Minister for Public Works and Communications. During the eight months of Douglas’ tenure as PM, Charles was often called upon to function as the acting Prime Minister.
When Douglas suddenly died in October 2000, Charles succeeded him.
He became ill in February 2003 and had angioplasty surgery.
Despite this, he continued to serve as prime minister until his death, but he did take a medical leave of absence, during which Osborne Riviere acted as Prime Minister.
Well thank you so very DNO for that well written article. Let me as a well Red Laborite, take this opportunity on behalf of the DLP family to congratulate PM Roosevelt Skerrit since he is the one who benefited from the death of Pierre Charles and is still going strong up to this day.
DNO one thing that’s missing from the article was as when a then junior minister prophesied that he would not contest the 2005 election if Pierre Charles was still the leader. DNO I bet you all have this proclamation stored somewhere and it would be great if it was part of this article since Pierre Charles died a year before the 2025 election, which means he was not the leader and the then junior minister who had the foresight or insight has been the PM from that up to today. I still Red boy and remember our history
Continue to rest in peace Pierre. You would be amazed and disappointed to see what we have come to. We miss leaders with the class and integrity that you had.
Dominica died the same day Pierro died because we can all here the blood of Pierre Charles crying in the ground and we can still hear God saying to Dominicans “Cursed is the ground because of you, The Evil one
No wonder the name of the Evil one is all tangled up in the Madueke indictment around the same time of the anniversary of Pierro’s death and it’s just about time before he is arrested. The blood of Rosie and Pierro crying over the evil one and he will never have peace and never be happy