About the Party

Read about our history of the party.

The Concerned Citizens Movement Party was founded in 1986 after a series of preliminary meetings in Nevis in July 1986 and subsequently in St. Croix USVI later in that year.

A number of persons were involved in these preliminary meetings including Frankly Brand, Loris James, Carlisle Jeffers, Dr. Betram Charles, Orville “Lefco” Liburd, Dr. Linton Liburd, Calvin Howell and Vance Amory.

Some of these persons and others not mentioned, never made it past the preliminary meetings for a number of varied reasons. Franklyn Brand, Carlisle Jeffers and Vance Amory continued to spearhead the establishment of the CCM Party with the objective of providing for the people of Nevis an alternate party, broad-based, to provide good government for the social and economic development of Nevis.

These leaders of the CCM party made their presence felt in a series of information flyers, the first of which was distributed on 18 December, 1986.

The CCM Party was officially launched on 15 January, 1987 with its first public meeting at Fountain, St. James’ Parish, Nevis. The speakers at this meeting were Vance Amory (who performed the function of chairman) Franklyn Brand and Carlisle Jeffers. The meeting was a relatively short one due to the fact that the organizers and speakers were quite uncertain as to how the public would respond and more importantly, what would be the response of the government of the day.

There were two other meetings held in quick succession on the 16th January in Charlestown and 17th January at the Market shop, Gingerland.

After these initial meetings the party begun to pick-up momentum as the message of a better quality of life, better and more jobs for the people and empowerment in Health and Education began to resonate among the people of Nevis.

In the early stages of the CCM Party, the structure was quite loose as the party sought to find its legs in the relatively hostile environment in which 99% of the people of Nevis including the Leaders of the newly formed CCM party were supporters of the ruling party in Nevis.

Meetings to consolidate the CCM Party were held fortnightly at the residence of Vance Amory at Fig Tree, Nevis. The reason for this was that Vance Amory was at that time pursuing studies at the UVI. Mr. Carlisle Jeffers also resided in the USVI and both these gentlemen would travel to Nevis fortnightly to meet with the resident co-leader Mr. Franklyn Brand and the steadily growing following, which began to take an interest in the message of the newly established CCM Party.

The followers and co-leaders would meet at Mr. Amory’s residence on Friday evening and would then plan the public meetings for the Saturday and Sunday’s after which Mr. Amory and Mr. Jeffers would return to the USVI.

Persons like Trevor Chapman, Egbert Halliday, Livingston Herbert, Colin Tyrell, Annette Morton, Merle Wattley, Muriel “Nana” Liburd, Lucina “Mama Lu” Dore and Patricia Thompson were among the original stalwarts of the party. There were others whose names cannot now be remembered as most of the records were destroyed in 1989.

The CCM Party’s first election of officers of the Party took place with members sitting mostly on the floor of Mr. Amory’s residence. After a number of attempts to select a Party Leader, with Carlisle Jeffers and other individuals refusing to accept the nomination, Vance Amory was chosen to be the first political leader of the CCM Party sometime in the middle of 1987. The Party’s records were destroyed in 1989 by Hurricane Hugo.

The Party began in its rudimentary way to establish itself more firmly as an alternate party for the people of Nevis and continued to hold meetings periodically around Nevis, in order to prepare itself to contest the Nevis Island Assembly elections which were due in 1988.

01 12th, 2009