The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Long Island MP Loretta Butler-Turner should give serious consideration to calling off the attack dogs from her camp, who have launched an aggressive smear campaign against FNM Leader Dr Hubert Minnis.

Even if one were to accept Butler-Turner’s word to The Nassau Guardian that she is not undermining Minnis, she would be hard-pressed to deny reports that FNMs who are backing her for leadership are the ones behind the anti-Minnis movement.

This group has been tenaciously active since the November 2014 convention and even before then in opposing Minnis with the objective of making him look utterly incompetent to the Bahamian electorate. They have succeeded in tearing apart the FNM, hence weakening its chances of defeating the PLP in 2017.

This conniving group of FNMs are largely culpable for the strained relationship between Butler-Turner and Minnis. Whatever counsel they have given to Butler-Turner has had disastrous ramifications and may very well cost her a renomination in Long Island - which has always been considered an FNM bastion.

The hue and cry for a convention by the anti-Minnis camp in order to settle the leadership issue and to galvanise the FNM base is nothing more than a smokescreen to oust Minnis as leader.

Concerted attempts to isolate Minnis have failed, as Minnis has shrewdly consolidated his base, thus solidifying his hold on the leadership post by wooing Bamboo Town MP Renward Wells and Fort Charlotte MP Dr Andre Rollins over to the FNM.

This move neutralised a plan by several FNM MPs to send to the governor general a letter requesting her to remove Minnis as Her Majesty’s Official Opposition leader. How the press got wind of the plot is anyone’s guess. Had it succeeded, however, it wouldn’t have surprised the writer had Butler-Turner benefited the most from it.

While Minnis continues to face vituperative criticism for embracing the amalgamation of Wells and Rollins to the FNM, if truth be told, he had to establish a bulwark against his foes, otherwise they would have made mincemeat of him. 

Whether or not she was intimately involved in the scheme to get rid of Minnis, Butler-Turner should leave no stone unturned in distancing herself from the anti-Minnis faction, and work unremittingly towards jumpstarting the amelioration process.

For what it’s worth, she has either unwittingly or wittingly become the face and poster girl of the anti-Minnis faction. I am of the view that Butler-Turner holds the key to healing  the rift within the FNM. Butler-Turner must understand that the FNM can win without her. She can either be on the outside looking in or on the inside looking out. The choice is up to her. In the meantime, she has got to call off her attack dogs against Minnis.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport, Grand Bahama,

February 10, 2016.