The Dominica Labour Party is a political party in Dominica. At the last elections, 31 january 2000, the party won 43.1 % of popular votes and 10 out of 21 elected members of parliament. At that moment the DLP was led by Rosie Douglas. He was a former socialist radical, and many feared that his approach to politics might be impractical. However, he formed a coalition with the more conservative Dominica Freedom Party. Douglas died suddenly after only a few months in office, on October 1, 2000, and was replaced by Pierre Charles. On January 6, 2004, Charles, who had been suffering from heart problems since 2003, died. He became the second consecutive prime minister of Dominica to die in office of a heart attack. The foreign minister, Osborne Riviere immediately became prime minister, but the education minister, Roosevelt Skerrit succeeded him as prime minister and became the new leader of the party.