Evidence coming in suggests that there are very many Bahamians who are disenchanted as they try to make up their minds as to what party they would like to see in power after the next general elections contest is called.
The New Progressive Liberal Party has a lot of work to do to retain the confidence of the electorate. Bahamians are also less than impressed with the performance of a routed Free National Movement.
With General Elections due in the next two years or so, Bahamians are today doing what they do best, which is to weigh and sum up the party in power. Some Ministers are getting poor reviews. While they are in the throes of summing up the incumbents, they are obliged to check out the contenders on the opposition side of the political divide.
Were we asked our view of what things look like now, our candid response would be that things are looking bad for both the government and its opposition. They are therefore even worse for the Bahamian people. This is so because the same people are being obliged to make a choice as to who they would have govern the nation’s affairs for the ensuing five years.
It is today quite apparent that Bahamians are not getting value for money from the politicians and lawmakers they have engaged to look after their affairs. This is so because most of these politicians and lawmakers are engaged in their personal private business affairs and other social commitments, making it difficult for them to put just the right amount of attention into their public service duties.
As a consequence of this political fact of life in The Bahamas, most lawmakers and politicians convey the impression that politics is a type of hobby; albeit one where the toys are bought with public funds.
What is particularly beguiling about this thesis of politics as hobby in The Bahamas is the extent to which it seems to clarify any number of puzzles. Take for example, the salience of the known fact that the level of public debate is so low.
Our surmise concerning the low level of public debate is borne out in any number of public discussions where the voices of some of the best and the brightest cannot and will not be heard.
This is so because the time of most of these professionals is being consumed in their real work; whether as medical doctors, businessmen, lawyers, accountants, or others such. The bottom line in all of this is simple enough, where people do not have time for politics, political power and influence will flow elsewhere.
We would wish readership to be aware of the fact that this notion of politics as a hobby has roots that go deep into Bahamian political culture. Indeed there is an abundance of evidence to suggest that politics as a hobby and after thought was standard and state of the art in the old days when The Bahamas was dominated by the mercantile oligarchy, the Bay Street Boys. Those were the days when businessmen dominated The Bahamas; and where what was best for business, was considered good enough for everybody else.
Interestingly, when Majority Rule and Independence came upon the Bahamian people, politics as hobby was refined. This time around, some of those who became businessmen did so because they were politicians. This was the era when membership in Cabinet became such a prize; and when access to the prime minister’s ear was like money in the bank.
While this was happening, public services had to be provided-some how. That is precisely what happened. They were provided, but having been hastily slapped together, often under the mercenary gaze of civil servants and consultants, they were provided just so and some-how.
The inevitable results that are there for all to see are instance after instance of mediocrity and inadequacy throughout the public service. Coming with this territory is a phalanx of bureaucrats who between them do so little, and earn so much for the little that they do get done.
What is interesting with this state of affairs is not only that it is expensive, but also that it works to maintain a general situation of sleaze, rot, mediocrity and incompetence throughout what passes for public service and the public sector.
The bottom line is the fact that politics as a hobby and after-thought is obscenely expensive. To date, it has almost bankrupted The Bahamas.
Editorial from The Bahama Journal
