New Government Sought in Grenada

Legislators scrambled to fashion a governing parliamentary majority on Wednesday after inconclusive national elections, with Nicholas Brathwaite considered likely to become the next prime minister.

Brathwaite, 64, an educator who is regarded as a moderate, led a 13-month interim government after U.S. troops invaded this Caribbean island nation in 1983 and ousted a Marxist junta.

In Tuesday’s balloting, Brathwaite’s National Democratic Congress unofficially won seven of the 15 seats in the House of Representatives, one short of the majority needed to form a government. Under Grenada’s British-style system, the leader of the party with a parliamentary majority automatically becomes prime minister.

The elections followed the death last December of conservative Prime Minister Herbert Blaize, 71, a staunch U.S. ally who came to power in the last election in 1984.

Eric Gairy, 68, the former prime minister deposed by a leftist coup in 1979, lost his bid to return to Parliament. But his United Labor Party won four seats, making Gairy a potential power broker.

Brathwaite said Wednesday he is not interested in forming a coalition government because he does not want to share power with another party. However, he said he hoped to persuade at least one other legislator to defect to his party and was reportedly holding meetings to bring that about.