![\"fred-smith\"](\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/fred-smith.jpg\")
A noted Queen\u2019s Counsel attorney is calling for an overhaul of the political process, saying the time has come for Bahamians to choose their prime minister.<\/p>\nA noted Queen\u2019s Counsel attorney is calling for an overhaul of the political process, saying the time has come for Bahamians to choose their prime minister.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder the present system, we have the right to cast one vote, that of our Member of Parliament,\u201d said Fred Smith, QC. \u201cWe have absolutely no say in who is prime minister.<\/p>\n
The party has already chosen its leader through an arcane and archaic process of convention, which is really a big political party with negotiations, and rewarding generals and backbenchers who show allegiance. That\u2019s not reflective of what the public wants or who the public would choose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the leader being chosen by party faithfuls, but not by the public except insofar as electing the most MPs and without checks and balances, that distance between the electorate and the elected leads to unbridled power in the hands of the prime minister who does not have to answer to the people because they never voted for him \u2013 or possibly for her \u2013 in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that \u2018unbridled power,\u2019 he said, leads to even graver consequences.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou end up with a dictatorship,\u201d said Smith, who introduced the idea of a change in the political process during a near standing room only meeting of the Rotary Club of East Nassau recently and expanded on the subject during a subsequent interview this week.<\/p>\n
The concentration of power in the office of a leader who is not directly elected by the people is especially abhorrent, he said, when dealing with business matters \u201cthat should be left to business people who know the rules and regulations, the policy and practices and know what to expect instead of having to deal behind closed doors where policy is decided by a Cabinet minister.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deals made in secret put the country and the investor at risk \u2013 and create an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. Unchecked power, said Smith who is among the thousands calling for broader access to information, results in decision-making that bars the public from participating in decisions involving their interests, circumventing or blocking their ability to contribute to discussions about developments that may be in their own back yard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Office of the Prime Minister assumes unto itself unlawful powers to be involved in the business dealings of businessmen,\u201d said Smith, chairman of Save The Bays. \u201cIt is not how a democracy and capitalism and a free market economy work\u2026Politicians are not elected based upon their expertise as businessmen. They should not be involved in the negotiation of business deals between private enterprises.\u201d\u00a0 The government, he believes, should continue to monitor through regulatory agencies like the Securities Commission and URCA.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should also expand its regulatory role with greater protection for the environment with an environmental protection act and should ensure that the Health Safety at Work Act is respected or that the Department of Environmental Health Services is properly staffed and funded to be effective in preventing pollution such as what is happening at Clifton Pier,\u201d he said. \u201cBut leave the business of business to businesspeople and let the people decide who should be prime minister.\u201d<\/p>\n
How business is conducted and oil pollution at Clifton are subjects of two legal actions filed by Save The Bays. the fast-growing environmental advocacy group that has set records in social media with more than 17,100 Facebook friends and over 6,000 signatures on a petition on www.savethebays.bs supporting its principles. Among those principles: an environmental protection act, freedom of information legislation and an end to unregulated development.<\/p>\n
Diane Phillips and Associates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A noted Queen\u2019s Counsel attorney is calling for an overhaul of the political process, saying the time has come for Bahamians to choose their prime minister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":92500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}