The governing party and its allies are obviously enjoying the goings-on in the opposition in the run-up to the FNM’s convention in November. In the House of Assembly last week PLP members, including Prime Minister Perry Christie, took aim at the way the FNM’s leadership contest is developing.
That is what opposing political parties do, and in this particular case the process has not been a text-book example of what should happen. But political activity is seldom by the letter and that is why each major political event has an anatomy of its own.
While attempting to score points, Mr Christie and his colleagues should bear in mind that the Bahamian electorate is more sophisticated, exposed and informed than ever before.
The idea that a political party can or should at all costs avoid internal debates and contests is simply foolish and can never lead to progress, only atrophy. A political party must demonstrate that it is willing to take the risks associated with democratic process.
Similarly – and this is a lesson Mr Christie has yet to assimilate – a prime minister does not preserve the stability of his party nor the nation when he allows everybody in his government to do just as they please. Ignoring crises today only means they will intensify tomorrow.
As the song says, Mr Christie should deal with his own issues, which happen to be multitudinous and, apparently, overwhelming.
In the next election his government will have to account for a long list of decisions avoided, blunders committed and promises betrayed. And, as much as Mr Christie might like to play the ostrich, they also have to face the issue of leadership. The lean and hungry ones are already plotting.
All political parties have internal tensions and, from time to time, fights over leadership. This is true of totalitarian parties as well as democratic parties. That does not necessarily mean that a particular party is inherently unstable. It is the nature of politics.
A vicious battle erupted in Britain in 1990 when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was brought down by a coup in her own Conservative Party. She is regarded by some as the greatest British prime minister since Winston Churchill but that did not stop her colleagues from moving against her when they thought it was in the interest of their party and the country.
This drama made daily and sometimes lurid headlines in the British press. A fascinating insider’s account of the machinations can be found in Alan Clark’s astonishingly frank Diaries, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Mr Clark records, after a phone conversation with Mrs Thatcher as the revolt was brewing.
“I don’t think she realises what a jam she’s in. It’s the Bunker syndrome. Everyone round you is clicking their heels. The saluting sentries have highly polished boots and beautifully creased uniforms. But out there at the Front, it’s all disintegrating. The soldiers are starving in tatters and makeshift bandages. Whole units are mutinous and in flight.”
A few other snippets from Mr Clark’s Diaries may have resonance here, “The party is virtually out of control. Mutinous… Code is abandoned. Discipline is breaking up… We are at present in a state where any news, however slight and tenuous, spreads like wildfire if it is damaging… Perfectly ridiculous. No-one seems to have given a thought to the constitutional implications, still less the international… Margaret will never be defeated either in the country or in this House of Commons.”
In that last comment Mr Clark apparently forgot his own earlier discernment, “It’s this absolute unpredictability that makes politics irresistible.”
I strongly recommend Alan Clark’s Diaries to those Bahamian politicians who have not yet read it, but I fear the point of all this will go completely over the head of PLP chairman Raynard Rigby. Mr Rigby – and others who ought to know better – have been talking as if there is something peculiarly unstable about the FNM.
There have been three genuinely national political parties in the short history of party government in the Bahamas: the UBP, the PLP and the FNM. If you measure instability by internal conflicts, splits and defections, then the PLP has been far and away the most unstable.
The FNM was formed in 1971 when most of the opposition forces in the country came together under its banner. Just before the 1977 general election, internal wrangling led to an open split.
Space does not permit a detailed account, but it was indeed a spectacular splintering which distressed thousands of voters who wanted to express effectively their displeasure with the PLP.
The PLP naturally milked this division for years. But between 1977 and 1982 a most remarkable process took place uniting all the factions again under the banner of the FNM. They have been together ever since.
The late Sir Kendal Isaacs led the party into the 1982 election when it won 11 seats. Included in that parliamentary contingent was the late Sir Cecil Wallace Whitfield, founding leader of the party, who collaborated wholeheartedly with Sir Kendal.
Sir Kendal led the party again in 1987 but resigned when it did not win, and Sir Cecil became leader. The FNM got 16 After Sir Cecil’s illness and -death, Hubert lngraham was elected and led the party into two election victories.
A confrontation with Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, and the FNM leadership contest in 2001, led to the disaffection of two FNM parliamentary members, Tennyson Wells and Pierre Dupuch.
They were not nominated by the party for the 2002 election but ran as independents with PLP support and kept their seats. As far as I know these two gentlemen have not attempted to start a new party and Mr Dupuch has announced he will not run again.
Leaving aside the special case of Sir Randol Fawkes who resigned from the PLP and formed his own Labour Party prior to majority rule, three separate political parties were started as a result of splits in the PLP.
There was an intesne power struggle in the PLP after its formation in 1956 which resulted in the ascendancy of the late Sir Lyden Pindling and his supporters.
In 1963 there was an incident at Sir Lynden’s house on Soldier Road which came to be known as “the Christmas Coup”.
Then in 1965 after the mace incident four PLP parliamentary members led by Paul Adderley broke a boycott of the House which had been ordered by Sir Lynden with the support of the party. They were suspended from the PLP and three of them became the nucleus of the National Democratic Party under Mr Adderley’s leadership.
Mr Adderley led his NDP into the 1967 election in opposition to the PLP but failed to win a seat. The NDP failed again when it opposed the PIP in 1972. After that election Mr Adderley went back to the PLP while most of his NDP colleagues teamed up with the new FNM.
By far the grandest of all party splits and the one that has had the greatest impact on the history of the Bahamas occurred in the PLP in 1970. Eight parliamentary members, including four former cabinet ministers, dramatically voted no confidence in Sir Lynden at the height of his power, were suspended from the PLP and went on to form the Free National Movement in 1971.
All of this was accompanied by a vicious propaganda campaign in which the Eight were condemned on national radio as traitors and some of them, including Sir Cecil, were violently set upon and beaten in broad daylight at Lewis Yard, Grand Bahama.
The Lewis Yard incident and Sir Cecil’s historic Free At Last speech to the PLP convention occurred before the no confidence vote. On the night of the vote the Eight had to be protected from a violent crowd by a strong police cordon. Even so, someone came dangerously close to stabbing Sir Cecil.
In 1997, after a humiliating defeat at the polls, Sir Lynden finally gave up the leadership of his party and his two codeputy leaders, Perry Christie and Dr Bernard Nottage, fought for the mantle.
It was a nasty affair in which Mr Christie won and Dr Nottage left the PLP to form the Coalition for Democratic Reform, the third party to be born out of PLP infighting.
In addition to the Dissident Eight, there is an impressive list of former PLP parliamentarians and others who over the years found life in that party untenable, including Carlton Francis, Edmund Moxey, Sir Arlington Butler and Hubert Ingraham. ﾠA few went back. ﾠOne was Perry Christie.
Commentary By: Arthur Foulkes, as printed in The Tribune
Nassau, Bahamas
