By Jerry Roker
for Bahamas Press
To a very large extent, if you have read one of her articles you have pretty much read them all. There is one common thread: anti-Perry Christie, anti-PLP. The only exceptions are occasional excursions of dislike for Opposition Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis and a cabinet minister here and there. By her accounting, there is nothing good in our Bahamas. She certainly is entitled to her views. I have come to know that in a very substantial way, one comes to his or her view based on their interest and their knowledge, usually in that order.
It seems to me that the details from one column to the next don’t really matter because the good lady will always be against the Government no matter what.
I say that because her opposition comes before all else; before any analysis that gives fair consideration to the attributes or merits of any policy.
She will twist and exaggerate.
Each column is a continuation of her permanent opposition to the Government. She casts judgment on its performance — unsurprisingly, it’s “non-existent” — and burnishes this conclusion by telling readers how Bahamians across The Bahamas are feeling. Apparently we are, to a man, “disillusioned” and “violated”. Curiously, those “feelings” reflect FNM talking points that the PLP Government is working for everybody except Bahamians.
A couple of thoughts on that: the lady, like FNMs, are guilty of a self-induced amnesia that frees them to criticise the Government for not doing enough for the unemployed or spending enough for those in need. That amnesia allows for no mention of the disaster the FNM left behind after they were voted out of office — an economy at an absolute standstill, in depression by any measure, with thousands of once-employed Bahamians without a job and no prospects of one; all as though the economic pit The Bahamas was left in had nothing to do with them.
People may be tired of hearing about the FNM’s record in office, but it remains the overriding fact of the life for the PLP Government — limiting its ability to spend on people, requiring them to win back trust in The Bahamas as a place to do business, not an easy thing to do. These are big challenges that take time to overcome, but I think everyone today can at least sense that things are turning around.
From my perspective, the PLP is doing a remarkable job rebuilding trust in the marketplace. If you don’t believe me look at the number of heads of agreements executed during the last three years, particularly the ones that have the shovel in the ground.
Signs of the economy finally tilting towards growth are clear for anyone who wants to see them, and now the PLP government has another year to lock in the gains and bring about the results they were elected to produce. If they pull it off, the PLP Government may well go down as one of the most effective in our history. To reverse an economy that was in a depression will be no mean feat.
So here’s hoping.
Unfortunately, there are lots of people out there who don’t wish the Government well, with some salivating at the prospect of it all blowing up in the PLP’s face. It’s about partisan interest before national interest.
That’s just the landscape we occupy today.
So, just for the record, I suggest, Ms. Editor, that you help readers’ understanding by making it clear who they’re reading when it comes to you. I wouldn’t go so far as to label you “Our FNM columnist”, because you dilute your connection with them by taking an occasional jab at their leader, some differ and called them ‘sucker punches’. That’s too easy to deny. How about, instead, “Our anti-PLP Government columnist”?
