Arthur Foulkes

Sir Arthur Alexander Foulkes GCMG ( born May 11, 1928 in Matthew Town, Inagua, Bahamas ) is a journalist, diplomat and politician, and since 2010 the Governor General of the Bahamas.

Biography

Foulkes was first a journalist and first 1948-1962 editor and publisher of the daily newspaper, The Nassau Tribune. In 1962, he was the founder and until 1967 also the editor of the newspaper The Bahamian Times, the party organ of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP ).

In the elections of 1967 he was elected a member of the Assembly House ( House of Assembly ) and was in the following years, among other Minister of Communications and Tourism in the PLP provided by the government of Prime Minister Lynden O. Pindling. In 1970 he was one of the eight MPs who opposed Pindling as party chairman and the PLP left.

Subsequently, he was co-founder in 1971 of the Free National Movement ( FNM) and was appointed as its representative in 1972 as a member of the Senate, where he served after his reappointment to 1982. In 1982 he was again elected a member of the meeting house and belonged to this until 1992.

1992 he was appointed High Commissioner in the UK. In this role he was also accredited as Ambassador to France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Belgium and the European Union.

He became the first ambassador of the Bahamas in the People's Republic of China and in Cuba in 1999. For his services he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross in 2001 the Order of St Michael and St George, so that he has since the title " Sir " leads. After the electoral defeat of the FNM in 2002, he retired from the diplomatic service and was subsequently re- worked as a journalist for the newspapers The Guardian and The Nassau Nassau Tribune, where he was a columnist for the prestigious column "To The Point".

After re- election victory of the FNM, he was appointed in 2007 by Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham Director General of Bahamas Information Services, the Press and Information Service of the Government. At the same time he was its official representative in that position for local absence of the Governor General.

On 13 April 2010 he was appointed as the successor of Arthur Dion Hanna Governor General of the Bahamas, and put on 14 April 2010 his oath of office.