A significant number of former Free National Movement MPs, officers and generals have made a decision to give aid and comfort to the re-election of Prime Minister Perry Christie in the upcoming general election.
Many of them have spoken out publicly while others are speaking in private about their disdain for former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.
The Journal understands that for the next elections a group called “FNMs For Christie” plans to give both overt and covert support to the PLP in an effort to block the return of Mr. Ingraham.
Some of the former MPs who are believed to be a part of this effort include: Tennyson Wells, Algernon Allen, Pierre Dupuch, Lester Turnquest, Floyd Watkins, Anthony Miller, Elliot Lockhart, Ronald Bostfield and Sir Arlington Butler.
Others who are reportedly a part of the effort are former party officers Derek Simms and Roston Miller.
FNM generals in many constituencies are also supportive of the group, according to its members.
One of the former MPs who is a part of the strategic planning gave the Journal 10 reasons why the former MPs favour Mr. Christie over Mr. Ingraham. The reasons he gave are:
1. Christie generally is a nice person. That is a tremendous plus when you contrast him with the mean spiritedness of Ingraham.
2. Christie does not like hurting people whereas it is a re-enforcement of Ingrahamﾒs sense of power to hurt people.
3. Ingraham appears to embrace the views and advice of foreign persons over that of Bahamian professionals. This is why the professional class did not support the FNM during the last elections. This is why the FNM could win only one seat in New Providence.
4. Ingraham resented original FNMs because he thought (correctly) that they expected to participate in the governance of The Bahamas. And as history would show, he was a one-man band preferring to embrace those persons whom he felt were of no threat to his dominance of the political process.
5. It was quite clear that his professed stance against conflict of interest and correct practices are tailored for political expediency.
6. The saga of Tommy Turnquest travails as leader provides a window into the cynical and duplicitous modus operandi of Mr. Ingraham. For example, to have communicated in no uncertain terms that less than 24 hours before nomination at the partyﾒs convention that he would not be offering for leader and then to do so in an organized and pre-meditated manner ought to tell all Bahamians the nature of the man.
7. Ingraham has ensured that a significant number of FNM nominees for the next general elections are his handpicked loyalists. As an example of the turmoil created in Grand Bahama, one has only to look at the Zhivargo Laing comedy, where Mr. Laing withdrew from politics because God told him so, and returned a short time later because Ingraham told him to.
8. Ingrahamﾒs inability to connect with the electorate is because The Bahamian people have outgrown Hubert Ingraham. He is a 1950s politician trying to run in the new millennium. In addition to this, the many contradictions and the flexible morality of Ingrahamﾒs last two terms in office have made the electorate distrustful.
9. When a prime minister articulates at the dawn of his term a manifesto pledge of two terms and refuses to go then it is sufficiently as to the content of his character.
10. Many persons on both sides of the political divide were horrified that Mr. Ingraham would make the payment of Sir Lyndenﾒs pension contingent on his retirement from parliament, but in the same breath remain in parliament and collect his prime ministerﾒs pension. This is as twisted and unfair as any action by a political leader in Bahamian history.
Confronted with the assertions being made by members of the group, FNM Chairman Desmond Bannister said Sunday he will not respond to what he views as mere speculation.
The Bahama Journal
