The Tribune

AFTER a convincing general election win, taking North Abaco will be “the icing on the cake” for the PLP, Prime Minister Perry Christie said.

According to Mr Christie, a victory for PLP candidate Renardo Curry will not only be of great benefit to the people of that constituency, but also a feather in the cap of the governing party.

“I can’t say how grateful I was to have won the general elections by such a healthy margin – how humbled I was to emerge Prime Minister again,” he said.

“But this victory here, will be the icing on the cake. So tell me you’re going to elect Renardo on Monday. Are you serving Curry on Monday, North Abaco?”

The Prime Minister went on to tell supporters in North Abaco about the similarities between himself and the candidate.

“Renardo,” he said, “is just stepping into politics, and I am enjoying my final term but a strong leader is a strong leader, no matter the generation.

“In 2007, after delivering so much for our country, over 22,000 jobs, an economy out-pacing the United States, foreign direct investment throughout this archipelago, tax concessions for first time home owners, social interventions through Urban Renewal and community policing (and the list goes on and on), the people of this country rejected me in those elections.

“I had to pack up and go home, go back to being an MP and leader of the Opposition. I had to endure the reality of what happens when you’re not ‘numero uno’ anymore – so-called friends leave, people tease you about being the first one term Prime Minister, enemies intensify their attacks on you and your family, and you sit with yourself for years questioning, why were you rejected, and should you continue in this thing.

“But what makes a man a strong man, I have learned for myself, is to stand in the midst of all of that negativity and make the decision to press on – to hold on to whatever you have left, whoever you have left, and keep on keeping on.

“I lived that. I went from winning big to losing big and then having to decide if I had what it takes to fight to win another day.

“When I look at Renardo then, many times I see myself. He lost the general elections. A young man with a young wife and family, not particularly wealthy, in a seat that has voted one way for the last 35 years.

“Yet he went up against a Prime Minister. And having lost the first time around, when I asked him if he wanted to be appointed to the Senate, he looked at me without flinching and boldly proclaimed that he wanted to wait, to fight, to go up against his opponents again, in hopes that this time around he would win.”