By Alexander James/ Editor
NASSAU| Some history for the FNM to focus on as it falls deeper into a crisis over leadership.
The turn of events in the fallout of the West End and Bimini bye-election has caused the leadership of the FNM to slip into a crisis. Kingsley Smith, who will be welcomed into Parliament this week for the PLP Government, delivered a dangerous cut-yinner-know-what to FNM Ricardo Grant; who by far was a bad, weak candidate.
Smith collected 57% of the votes while Grant got 33%, a lower percentage than Pakesia Parker who lost the seat by 38% of the votes in 2021.
In short, the numbers cannot lie. The PLP in two years has increased its votes among the electorate and the FNM’s popularity has further declined after two years with new leadership at the top. This is not good!
Politicos will recall it was in 2009 when the PLP accepted that a leadership adjustment was necessary to regain the party’s confidence with the voters. The PLP determined three years out to hit the reset button and lock its eye on the 2012 General Elections. At that 2009 Convention, even Perry Gladstone Christie faced the music of the delegates. He won.
The incoming new Deputy Leader of the PLP in that race was the MP for Cat Island, Rum Cay, and San Salvador Mr Philip Edward Brave Davis. He won. And returning with the confidence of the Convention for the Chairman post was Bradley Roberts. He won by an overwhelming majority of the delegates, too.
Within three short months after the confetti and balloons were all finished and done Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham manufactured a bye-election in the Elizabeth Constituency [formerly the Malcolm Creek Constituency] whose Member of Parliament Malcolm Adderley jumped down following a dangling of the carrot by Ingraham to become a Supreme Court Judge. That promise never materialized but the bye-election was swift. Following that February 19th, 2010 bye-election, PLP candidate Leo Ryan Pinder received 1499 votes and FNM Candidate Duane Sands 1501. A difference of two votes.
An election court challenge was filed led by The New Deputy Leader Philip Davis who proved that five votes in dispute were legal votes which must be added to the tally in the column of the PLP. The election court agreed. And the PLP went on to win Elizabeth by three votes.
The New PLP [CDR] leadership understood the consequences of losing the Elizabeth bye-election. And they all knew that a win while they were in opposition foreshadowed a brighter future outcome for them in the 2012 General Election. The three years between the 2009 Convention and 2012 would give the PLP the time to realign the Party, regain its momentum with a new generation of leaders, and fine-tune its national message for the 2012 General Elections. So let’s put the question: Where in 2023 does the FNM Leadership find itself after the recent bye-election?
Like the PLP in 2009, it is at the crossroads of the midterm with just three years to prepare the FNM for a General Election.
In just two years, support for the FNM is weaker, it’s weaker in finances, and weaker in a lackluster leadership team that the public is not finding very attractive. It has no attraction for youth voters, which was demonstrated by the voters in West Grand Bahama and Bimini. Ideas put forth appear to be coming from a group that lacks the skills to modernize the party and bring it into the 21st century. And following observations by this writer, the Free National Movement does not have a real national message and the party faithful are not singing from the same hymn sheet. This is not good!
Added to this the level of bloody violence fueling deep divisions in the FNM is shocking. From the bloody face of Hiram Kelly at a meeting at Sadie Curtis School, to the Women’s Association Meeting where a knife was pulled on Pamala Miller to the latest slapdown and gun pulling last week on Vice Chairman Richard Johnson, it all proves violence is quickly setting in as the norm in the FNM!
Sober minds within the party must fix this or the party will suffer an even worse defeat in a General Election than it did in the declining numbers of its support in West Grand Bahama and Bimini.
And we at Bahamas Press do not suggest at all that any of the party’s former Prime Ministers are the solution either. Let us be clear on that point. What we do say is this: a failure to rectify and bring correction to the present state of the FNM SHALL deliver a second vote of rejection by the People of The Bahamas whose preference for the management of its Billion-Dollar business is for serious, focused, unified, trustworthy leadership such as the style demonstrated by the Davis Government. Anything that does not meet the expected standards of all right-thinking Bahamians will not make the cut.
And so Michael Pintard, Shanendon Cartwright, and Duane Sands: the ball is in your court. You can put the vote to the shareholders of the FNM and let them decide. Or you can bury your head in the sand and sink further into the abyss, all the time pretending that all is well in the FNM.
We report yinner decide!
