The Bahamas has been moving towards the First World for the past 39 years – since majority rule was attained in 1967 – but those people who claim to want that status, hold on tenaciously to their Third World habits. They simply refuse to adhere to the practices and conventions that set apart the old and the new.
In the First World – developed countries – people in high profile, sensitive and public office accept responsibility for inappropriate behaviour in those positions, and with few exceptions, are asked to resign, they resign, or they are fired.
That is not the norm in Third World or developing countries. Very seldom are elected politicians, who act inappropriately, asked to resign their appointed positions or their seats in Parliament. The more brazen will even seek to again test their chances with the electorate, which at times have proven to have short and selective memories.
A firestorm is evolving over former United States Congressman from Florida, Mark Foley’s explicitly sexual e-mails to teenage congressional pages. “I deeply regret and accept full responsibility for the harm I have caused,” he later said.
Mr Foley last Friday resigned from the US House of Representatives. He recognised that once his inappropriate behaviour had been exposed, he could no longer continue as the representative of his constituents in Florida who had sent him to Washington.
Thirty years ago, in 1976, another Congressman, Wayne Hays, resigned after it was revealed that for two years he allegedly paid a secretary on his staff to be his mistress. The former secretary had admitted: “I can’t type, I can’t file, I can’t even answer the phone.”
Hays, a Democrat, served for 28 years after being elected to the Eighty-first Congress in 1948 and was subsequently elected to the 13 succeeding Congresses. He was chairman of the powerful Committee on House Administration and received five votes for president at the 1972 Democratic National Convention.
And in August 2004 New Jersey Governor James McGreevey resigned after admitting to having an extramarital homosexual affair with a male employee.
McGreevey announced at a press conference: “I am a gay American.” He also said that he “engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man” and that he would resign effective Nov. 15, 2004.
However, the history of American and British politics is replete with many scandals and resignations, and one that many Baby Boomers will vividly remember is the 1963 resignation of Britain’s Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, who admitted he had lied to Parliament about his relationship with call girl Christine Keeler. That “great tragedy” was said to have caused Prime Minister Harold Macmillan the government.
During a 25-year tenure as Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Sir Lynden Pindling was known to be heavy-handed with his ministers and party members who served on the backbench. There were some resignations and there were some outright firings of people who Sir Lynden felt were not working in the best interest of the government, the party and the country.
[Bahamas B2B Editor’s Note: ﾠOf course, it should also be mentioned that Mr. Pindling, a notorious international drug dealer and partner with Columbian drug lord Carlos Lehder, also unethically fired ministers who challenged his lack of ethics ethcis and his criminal shenanigans.]
In the almost 10 years of Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham’s administration a number of people were terminated, including cabinet ministers, presumably in the best interest of the government and the people of The Bahamas. The current administration is nearing the end of its five-year term and over the period there have been incidences that were termed scandalous, where it could have required resignations or terminations. To date there have been none and none are expected.
Editorial from The Nassau Guardian
