The Tribune

FRED Mitchell has called on the Free National Movement to make it clear if the party will follow through with “threats” to end the employment of some civil servants, which he said came from former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham at a FNM rally last Tuesday. Last week, Mr Ingraham told FNM supporters that if the party wins the next election “from the hill to valley they all gone,” which was interpreted by Mr Mitchell as a threat to remove civil servants, including Governor General Dame Marguerite Pindling.

“There has been a deafening and stony silence and contempt from the FNM on this matter,” Mr Mitchell noted in a statement. “It means then that they fully intend to carry out those threats of institutional victimisation and summarily fire people in the public service if they come to power.

“The attack by Mr Ingraham is particularly egregious and worrisome since he was the author of similar policies from the public platform as far back as 2007.

“...It is embarrassing for a former prime minister of this country, a country that wants and expects an elder statesman who can speak to issues of national import without vitriol, nastiness and partisanship, and who can be comfortable and respected in his retirement by all sides.

“Now he comes back into the public fray and attacks the governor general, threatening her post, in a move which violates all traditions and norms. He is attacking someone who he knows cannot defend herself. She can say nothing but be subject to nastiness and filth from a man who ought to know better.”

Yesterday, PLP Deputy Leader Philip “Brave” Davis also lashed out at the FNM, saying the party has shown “how little they trust” FNM Leader Hubert Minnis, turning instead to their former leader, Mr Ingraham, to take centre stage in the lead up to the election.

“Ingraham, who sat on the sidelines during years of his party’s turmoil and in-fighting, has appeared on FNM rally stages in recent days, hurling one accusation after another against the party that sent him home five years ago,” Mr Davis noted in a statement.

“If he believed in anything he was saying, he would have registered concerns through legal and proper channels, of course. But these last-minute attacks are only lies and distortions, intended to distract Bahamians from the weakness of Minnis and the dysfunction of the current FNM.

“Hubert Minnis is the weakest candidate ever put forth by a major political party in this country. Because he cannot lead, his party continues to this day beset by internal turmoil and deep divisions.”

Mr Davis also accused the former prime minister of threatening to fire civil servants and Dame Marguerite.

“The PLP government for its part, and in stark contrast to the FNM, has not only protected our national institutions but has processed more than half of the 3,000 or so contract workers in the public service, placing them on the permanent and pensionable payroll. The policy of the PLP is to protect and create jobs while the policy of the FNM is to fire civil servants out of petty political spite,” Mr Davis claimed.