The Tribune

PLP Chairman Bradley Roberts is so anxious to blame the FNM for the failed attempt of the 2002 referendum to give Bahamian women the same gender rights as their male counterparts that he has no qualms about distorting history.

He maintains that the FNM “screwed up” the first referendum and although the party had had another chance to make a second attempt to introduce a second referendum on the matter, it failed to do so. It is unclear why Mr Roberts thinks that the FNM should have given Bahamians a second chance when they – many of them women – at great public expense had spurned their first chance to be first class citizens. Mr Roberts then arrived at the stupid conclusion that the 2002 referendum failed because the church was not consulted. It would be interesting to know where in the Constitution is there a requirement that the church be consulted. Despite this, the church had many opportunities to participate and many of them did.

For example, the late Catholic Archbishop Burke, sensibly advised Bahamians to forget the political hype and “leave it to the people”. He said everybody had agreed that the proposed amendments would be good for the country. It was now the people’s turn to speak their mind.

We recall shortly after Mr Christie had won the 2002 election we were outside St Anselm’s Church in Fox Hill, having attended the wedding of one of our nephews. Prime Minister Christie did not recognise one of the family members. We identified him as a nephew — the grandson of the late Sir Etienne Dupuch who had made so many real sacrifices for his country — who could not get his Bahamian citizenship because his mother had married a Canadian and he was born in Canada. The solution to the very issue that Mr Christie had helped defeat. This now focused the problem.

Mr Christie quickly replied with a confident smile that the matter was now in his hands. It was something that was impossible for Mr Ingraham to have accomplished, he said, boasting that only he could do it. And do it he would. But during the five years of his administration he never again mentioned the referendum to bring women into the fold of equality. Mr Roberts has criticised the FNM for doing nothing to resurrect the referendum, but Mr Christie, who boasted that only he could push it through, has waited 14 years since that 2002 conversation to make his first attempt to do so. Only he could successfully handle the matter, he claimed. We shall now see if he will succeed – although so far no date has yet been set for the referendum to be held.

Mr Christie, although voting in the House in 2002 to all of the terms of the proposed constitutional amendments, when he got outside to sell the idea to the people he suddenly discovered that he did not fully understand the enormity of what he had done. He declared that this meant that he would now have to vote “no” to the changes and encourage Bahamians to join him. If we were in his position — and having been given so much time to study the proposals – we would have been embarrassed to admit that we did not know what we were doing. In our opinion it was not the brightest admission to make.

However, if the truth be known, looking back over the years the real reason for his volte face was that he wanted the referendum to become an election issue— if the FNM lost the referendum, it was being said – they would lose the election. The PLP and Mr Christie bought into the idea and instead of fighting for a referendum, they were fighting an election. As we know, they won that election and left the woman’s issue to gather dust.

And so for Mr Roberts’ sake, we will go over the history of the period. We have the advantage over him in that we have the files. He likes to make up “history” – we don’t. So let’s stick to the facts.

In an editorial, written on March 7, 2002, we recorded that 18 months earlier, then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham had written to PLP leader Perry Christie and CDR leader Bernard Nottage, outlining FNM proposals for changes to the Constitution. Mr Ingraham made it clear to them that his government would move only on matters on which they could all agree. He didn’t want to politicise the referendum.

Neither party leader replied to him for some time. Then around June, 2001, Dr Nottage replied, followed by Mr Christie. Each set out the issues they could support. The FNM then dropped all of the proposals that would be in contention. Based on the feedback from the two opposition leaders, government formulated Bills that resulted in six questions being selected to go to referendum.

On announcing in the House in January, 2002 that a referendum would be held in February, Prime Minister Ingraham said there would be town meetings, radio talk shows, television shows, and written material to educate the public.

Mr Ingraham said he did not want the matter to be politicised and wanted the opposition to participate in “some of the sessions, for the purpose of informing the public and answering questions so we are not divided on partisan lines on the issue. We are not seeking to say that ‘you know this is an FNM thing’ as opposed to this is a thing that we the parliamentarians of the Bahamas have now agreed to”.

In the House, opposition MPs questioned the constitutionality of a referendum being part of a general election. They insisted that it be held separately from an election. They won their point.

Government then suggested that the referendum be held a minimum of 21 days after passage of the Bills in parliament. The opposition objected. Again, they won their point – 30 days was agreed.

When it came time to vote on the constitutional reforms, the record shows that all MPs voted unanimously in favour of all but one of the questions to be put to the people.

The main question– that discrimination against 50 per cent of the population should end - in other words that all Bahamians should be equal, seemed too obvious to need explanation.

However, when Mr Christie attended his first town meeting, he had changed his mind. Having taken so long to agree not to disagree, having voted ”yes” on all the issues, he announced that if the referendum were not cancelled he would be forced to vote “no”.

Again to accommodate him, the sixth referendum question of which he complained was eliminated.

“If I knew then what I know now, I almost certainly would have taken a different position on the bills,” he told those attending the town meeting.

He and his party campaigned vigorously against the referendum, which they defeated. The PLP won the election, and after much foot dragging and many excuses they are only now realising that the women of this nation are still not equal citizens.