Bahamians are energized whenever there is a fight for power. For some it is a spectacle like no other. And for others, it is an opportunity to see how democracy works in a small country that aspires to be ‘the greatest little nation in the world’.
Senator Tommy Turnquest has been retired by the man who hand-picked him as leader of the Free National Movement. Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham defeated Mr. Turnquest by polling 227 votes. The Senator got only 104 votes with Dion Foulkes polling a mere 40 votes.
While all eyes have been trained on the Free National Movement and its myriad of intrigues and new daily developments, attention will soon be on the Progressive Liberal Party and its own pre-elections maneuvers.
Even now, there are Bahamians who vividly remember those titanic times when the likes of the late Sir Cecil Vincent Wallace-Whitfield and the incomparable Rt. Hon. Sir Lynden O. Pindling clawed and struggled for the power in The Bahamas.
We suspect that both of these illustrious leaders would have been proud of what they have wrought in this nation’s political arena, namely a space where Bahamians can ‘fight’ for power without coming to blows.
This is the big Bahamian achievement.
There is today all-party agreement that the struggle for power can be conducted with a certain amount of civility. In this regard, we note too that the relationship between those who vote and those who are elected to serve is simple enough. As we see it, electors and those elected are kept together when promises are kept, and goods delivered.
The truth, of course, is always to be found somewhere in the middle of these two true-believer perspectives. Those electors who are in search of the truth are precisely those people whom we have labeled ‘the decisive minority’. Whoever wins the next elections will owe a debt of gratitude to that group of electors.
True believers are very interesting people. In politics, they are the types who can quite literally be counted on for their votes. Tens of thousands of Bahamians know that they are FNM’s, while tens of thousands of their fellow Bahamians know what they have been taught, that they are PLP’s.
Then there is that minority of voters who ‘belong’ to neither party, who vote either on the basis of reason or conscience-dictate. We suspect that in a close race, this decisive minority will and can be a decisive difference in the outcome of the contest. These same people are not easily persuaded by gimmicks like fireworks gala balls, goatskin drums and whistles.
In this regard, we note that very many Bahamian politicians have a tendency to over sell themselves and their messages. Apparently convinced that they should engage in a politics that promises everyone every thing, some politicians proceed to do just that. They promise their would be supporters -as the old saying goes- the world and six pence.
An electorate on the prowl for easy solutions is fodder for the political ambitions of the type of leader who makes it his forte to promise every one what he wants.
As the record would show, when this type of messianic leader proves incapable of delivering the goods, some of those in his entourage decide to look for another savior, thus the revolving door of big promisers laden with big promises.
In good times, the illusion is maintained that the good times have been caused by the Maximum Leader himself. As is to be expected when hard times fall, recrimination sets in, the leader is castigated and the search for enemies begins in earnest.
There is also quite a bit of evidence to support the proposition that when these hard times coincide with the onset of elections, the incumbent party runs the risk of being shown the exit.
There is no question that some of this happened in 1967, 1992 and in the year 2002, when a supposedly ‘New’ Progressive Liberal Party was able to wrest the reins of power from the Free National Movement and its leaders, whether reference is made to The Hon. Tommy Turnquest or the Rt. Hon. Hubert A. Ingraham.
With that defeat, the stage was set for what is happening on today’s political stage. Both of the major parties and one or two heavy weights in the extra-parliamentary opposition are positioning themselves for the nation’s next big political fight.
Regrettably, the incumbent Progressive Liberal Party finds itself hoist on its own petard as the opposition lambastes them for being a ‘do-nothing’ party. This is quite evidently not totally true.
At this juncture, our advice is simple enough which is that those who seek to govern should be civil in their discourse, honest at all times and that they should eschew the temptation to promise every thing to every one at every time. It just cannot happen.
Editorial from The Bahama Journal
