The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

The upcoming general election reminds me of the final showdown in C S Lewis’ The Last Battle when Aslan assembles together the millions of creatures of Narnia for judgment after Father Time finally awoke from his sleep. What began in The Magician’s Nephew finally ends in The Last Battle. The creatures which were rejected by Aslan disappeared into the huge black shadow and were never seen again. The Bahamian electorate will have an opportunity to send to the political grave one of the leaders of the two major political parties. This election will determine this.

The announcement that the 2012 general elections would be held on May 7 is perhaps the most eagerly anticipated news in recent times. Provost Marshall Ellison Greenslade announced on Tuesday, April 10 that the House of Assembly was dissolved and that Parliament will reconvene on May 23. Now that Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham and the Governor General have dissolved the House on April 10 and have set the election date for May 7, this means that the election will be held 27 days after its dissolution. The prime minister is clearly within the boundary of the constitution. According to the constitution, had Prime Minister Ingraham allowed the House to automatically dissolve on May 22, he would have had 90 days in which to call an election. Ingraham has chosen not to take advantage of this extra time period. Analysts have been fairly accurate in predicting that the prime minister would name the election date immediately after the Easter holidays. The 38 candidates of the Free National Movement (FNM); the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) and the official Opposition Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) have sufficient time to get their message across to the voters of their respective constituencies. Supporters of both opposition parties have been for months now agitating Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham to name the election date. Well, now they have got their wish.

This election will be the most interesting in the history of the post-Majority Rule Bahamas, because two of the most interesting politicians will be going at it for the final time in their stellar political careers. Opposition Leader Perry Christie will be facing his former Cabinet and party colleague Hubert Ingraham for only the second time as party leader. Both men vied for the prime ministership in 2007. Interestingly, this was the first time that Christie had faced off against his former law partner. Ingraham had to contend with the legendary Sir Lynden O Pindling in 1992 and in 1997. The Delivery Boy, as Sir Lynden called him in 1992, is the only politician in this country that can boast of defeating the Father of the nation in an election. Neither Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield or Sir Kendal Isaacs were able to do it; not even in a quarter of a century when Pindling ruled The Bahamas. When Christie defeated the FNM in 2002, Tommy Turnquest was the Leader-elect of the then governing party heading into that year’s electoral contest. There are many who are of the view that the PLP only won that election because Ingraham had taken a back seat to Turnquest and Dion Foulkes, the deputy leader-elect. Perhaps they are right.

Both men (Ingraham and Christie) were protégés of Sir Lynden. In fact both men entered Parliament the same year, in 1977. I believe Christie served in the Senate for two years before he was elected representative for Centreville and Farm Road. Interestingly, Ingraham and Christie were fired from the Cabinet in 1984 after speaking out against the alleged corruption within the Pindling regime. In 1987, both ran as independent candidates in their respective constituencies and won. Ingraham was eventually expelled from the PLP. Christie, on the other hand, returned to the proverbial fold of the then governing party in 1990 and was appointed to a Cabinet post by Pindling. Ingraham joined the FNM in April of 1990 and became its leader soon after the death of Sir Cecil.

After leading the then official Opposition FNM to a bye-election victory in Marco City the same year after becoming its leader, Ingraham led the party to an impressive victory in the 1992 general elections. Ingraham led the governing party to another election victory in 1997. After another crushing defeat at the hands of his erstwhile political son, Sir Lynden retired from front-line politics. Christie became the new leader of the PLP. That was a post Sir Lynden had held since 1956, after PLP Chairman and de facto Leader Sir Henry Taylor was defeated in that year’s electoral contest. Ingraham will attempt to get his fourth non-consecutive term in high office; Christie his second. In any event, it should be their last election; their last political battle.

On May 7 thousands of Bahamians will go to the polls to elect the party they feel is best suited to manage the affairs of this country for the next five years. Will they choose Ingraham and his slate of candidates, or will they choose Christie and his slate of candidates? To be sure, Ingraham has done the best he could despite the Great Recession. In my opinion, no other leader could have fared any better. I believe Ingraham has done a decent job at keeping the country from totally collapsing. He should be given credit for that. What’s more, I believe he should be given another term in high office.

However, Christie and his candidates have alleged that the economy has been grossly mismanaged by the prime minister. Will the swing voters buy this argument? The advent of cable TV and the internet to New Providence and to several Family Islands have exposed Bahamians to the world. They can now watch what is happening on Wall Street and monitor the world economy on Bloomberg TV, CNN, BBC and MSNBC. They are not parochial and myopic as former generations of Bahamians were who lived in the Dark Ages. Informed Bahamians know that the situation in the US has caused our economy to plunge, not the Ingraham administration. To argue that Ingraham has caused the recession would be an insult to the intelligence of these enlightened Bahamians.

In the final analysis, the political fate of both Ingraham and Christie is now in the hands of the Bahamian electorate. Like Aslan who made the decision on who he wanted to keep around in The Last Battle, Bahamians will make a determination on which political leader they will want to keep around. It is widely speculated the defeated leader will make his exit from the political stage immediately after the election. May 7 couldn’t come soon enough.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport, Grand Bahama

April 10, 2012.