The Tribune

By NOELLE NICOLLS

Tribune Features Editor

nnicolls@tribunemedia.net

THIS week Renardo Curry will take his seat in the House of Assembly as the newest Member of Parliament for North Abaco. His ascendency concludes an uninspiring campaign process that produced a voter turnout of 86 per cent, down from 91 per cent in May’s general election.

The outcome was hardly any surprise. The Free National Movement fielded an amateur candidate at a time when they could hardly afford any mistakes. Momentum is still with the PLP and complacency has yet to blunt their determination. They were competitive and hungry and they devoured their prey.

Once again the FNM has been left licking its wounds. And some in the party are seriously questioning, did Hubert Ingraham single-handedly unravel the FNM? Did the “oversized ego” of which the PLP warned implode?

For now, party leader Dr Hubert Minnis is rebuffing any effort to undermine his attempt at leadership, while also seeming to indicate he embraces collective responsibility. But those sentiments still do not resolve the Ingraham matter.

In the eyes of the FNM their “papa” could not have fallen any lower. The seat which he represented for 35 years just got swept up in the gold rush. They have no papa to ball to now that papa has become the source of their woes. I appreciate these are trying times.

However, I would look suspiciously at any attempt by the party to completely disassociate itself from the former PM, painting him as a self-serving rogue. This would reflect a high level of insincerity from party operatives based on their former positions, and it would also make me question who they really were under his former leadership.

Where there is a bully there is often a push over, so Hubert Ingraham could only have been an oppressive dictator who dismantled the FNM in an environment where individuals and institutional structures allowed him to be. If Bahamian politics were school yard games I would be more sensitive to school children being bullied, but big grown men and women in politics will garner no sympathy from me.

Sitting members of parliament, particularly those who sat in Hubert Ingraham’s cabinet or the election brain machine own the legacy of the former PM just as much as he does, and they own whatever causes led to their defeat in May and last week. If the recent series of election results say anything about Mr Ingraham then they say just as much about the entire party.

Seeing the recent elections as a referendum on Ingraham’s leadership, his saddened and bitter comrades are already affirming “the Ingraham era is over”. There is no doubt; serious consideration needs to be given to the matter of Hubert Ingraham and what the FNM does with him.

We know for certain that party leader Dr Minnis wants the public to be absolutely clear, the former PM “does not speak for the FNM”. He insists there is no rift, although he has not been very convincing.

From a strategic point of view, the FNM would be wise not to be emotive. The Bahamas in its forty years has only had three prime ministers and Hubert Ingraham is one of them. Like him or not, he is a central figure in understanding our identity and our state of development. And as a party, the FNM has known only two other leaders (excluding Tommy Turnquest) prior to Mr Ingraham. Unless the FNM intends to completely reinvent itself, which would make no long-term political sense, then it will have to come to terms with Mr Ingraham. A tree without roots is dead.

The PLP long recognised Sir Lynden Pindling had political capital. And they continue to milk his legacy for all its worth, despite the many questionable, even objectionable dimensions of Sir Lynden’s past. What they have done successfully is to clearly articulate Sir Lynden’s national importance and specific contributions to national development.

They stand on the strength of his legacy and gain definition around it. And because Sir Lynden’s legacy is so connected to Majority Rule and independence it has historical weight and potential long term significance. As long as those keystone issues do not fade from the national consciousness, or better, from the emotional memory, the PLP will be able to use Sir Lynden’s legacy indefinitely.

So what of the FNM? If it has any hopes of being a viable party in an era post Ingraham, it will need to do three things: be transparent in its investigation of the last election loss; establish and claim the legacy of Hubert Ingraham; and clearly articulate who they are and what they stand for.

On the first point, I maintain, the FNM ran a much more cohesive campaign in the 2012 general election. (The same of course cannot be said for the North Abaco election). In May, the FNM gambled big. Unfortunately, for them, they lost the bet; hence the present 30 to 8 score in the House.

If the FNM did not take such big risks – like moving their established candidates to new constituencies, trying to score a two-for-one win – the election would not have been lost or won in a landslide. The former PM seems to me like a risk taker, which is not a bad quality in leadership. In fact, Bahamians on the whole are risk averse to our detriment. Any true risk taker understands that sometimes you lose.

Cries about intimidation, victimization and vote-buying now or in May are not going to cut it as explanations for the FNM’s trouncing. And unless the party is deeply introspective and transparent it will have no credibility in the public’s eyes, because the public is looking to understand what lessons it learned and what it intends to do differently. Placing the blame on Hubert Ingraham or PLP tactics only absolves the party of responsibility and the obligation to change. That will not jive with the public, and politically speaking it will be foolish.

One really bad strategic decision and two insurmountable governing realities led the FNM astray in the 2012 election. The FNM should never have embraced the papa moniker. It was chauvinistic and diminishing, and reinforced the worst perceptions about the former PM.

It is hard to deny that Hubert Ingraham was a strong and resolute leader. Bahamians like those qualities in him, and craved those qualities for Perry Christie. It was not the strength of the former PM’s leadership that was objectionable in the eyes of many; it was a perceived arrogance and totalitarianism. The FNM’s failure to announce a deputy prime minister further played into that negative storyline, even though technically speaking the position of deputy prime minister is a recently established political practice with no constitutional authority.

The thought of a one man show – a fountainhead named “Papa” – running the government was uncomfortable to many. And from a strategic point of view, the FNM did everything to reinforce those fears. In fact, they mocked those very concerns by wholeheartedly embracing the papa moniker. The country was not looking for a daddy. It was looking for a (political) leader.

The two governing realities which undermined the government’s credibility were the “dig up” roads and the murder rate. The government overplayed its hand seeking to be exempt from responsibility over the poor management of the road improvement project. Aside from the huge cost overruns and the lack of transparency, which established legitimate grounds to question the project’s management, the roadwork was so sprawling and so disruptive that it became a public nuisance. Throughout its governing process, the FNM consistently dismissed this very real sentiment.

And it highly underestimated how devastating the Coconut Grove Business League (CGBL) saga was to its image. In that battle, most people saw the government as the unfair aggressor, making others suffer and pay for its own incompetence. Coconut Grove symbolized the heart of the community, and the government’s late efforts to reconcile with a compensation package were too little too late.

No one denies the vision of the FNM government to improve public infrastructure. And everyone is now benefitting from the alleviation of traffic (that is until they turn on the stop lights, God forbid). But the nuisance caused by the way in which the project was executed and managed was simply overbearing.

On the crime front, while I do not hold the government responsible for the crime problem, the PLP provided a much more marketable plan. Urban Renewal, which I see as being a good community policing model while over-rated and misrepresented as a social services and community development strategy, sells well, which is the most important political point.

The FNM suffered from the same scourge that all governments in the Bahamas seem to do: a political disease called shortsightedness. The main symptom is the propensity to think in five year cycles. The FNM’s 2012 election plan, even the aspects that were progressive (Heritage Tourism Initiative and Back to the Island Campaign), seemed completely disconnected from its five year governing record and rhetoric, which made the plan lack credibility and ultimately buy in.

A smart government would lay the foundation in its first five years, for what it seeks to accomplish in at least a ten year scope. So when elections arise midterm, the public can clearly see how the existing work lays the foundation for the big vision, and serves as a stepping stone. When an incumbent government’s ideas for a second term seem disconnected from their governing record, the natural question is, what happened while you were in government.

Fight against crime was the number one priority on the FNM’s list of priorities in its manifesto. In its National Security Strategic Plan it said it would be “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”. The main problem is that Bahamians did not see the country “clearly headed in the right direction” on the national security front. They were looking for a new plan of action from the government.

What the FNM offered was a plan to continue what it was already doing unsuccessfully in the minds of the public: Modernize and better equip the police, implement tough anti-crime legislation and improve the legal, judicial and prison systems. In the face of the Urban Renewal machinery that plan was simply uncompetitive.

None of the above election factors undermine Mr Ingraham’s legacy. That being said, this is not an argument to establish a reason for the former PM to stick around. I was one who believed his decision to resign as leader and from North Abaco was the right one.

In the latter instance, it is true; Abaco did not elect Hubert Ingraham to be Prime Minister. So the feeling that his stepping down as constituency representative was driven by a hurt ego is understandable. But it made sense. The FNM has to establish itself post-Ingraham. It was inevitable; the election only hastened the process. Mr Ingraham sticking around would have made it infinitely harder for the FNM to grow wings.

So what does it really mean for Mr Ingraham to go? For some, it means he should be forgotten and everything he stood for should be abandoned. In other words, gone and gone for good.

The politically sound thing for the FNM to do is to place Mr Ingraham in an affirmative historical context and establish who he is and what he represents for the FNM and the country’s development. It is unfortunate that the former PM went out on such a low note, but placed in its full context that is the least of it. In politics you win some and you lose some. Mr Ingraham belongs in the past, yes, but not in the trash can of history.

Political institutions are not magic trees (there is a magic tree in the bushes of Cat Island that has no roots and no trunk; I have witnessed), root vegetables or self propagating plants. Successful political organisations are none of the above. They need to be firmly and deeply rooted in a history and a tradition.

In a sense, the FNM – a party formed by dissenting PLPs and a revived UBP reinventing itself – has got away with a lot. Now, having established a history and a tradition, the FNM needs to reflect and fully establish itself. Understanding Hubert Ingraham and his contributions to national development is central to this task.

Why was the FNM founded? What principles have its leaders stood for? What have been its governing priorities? What have been its guiding principles? What have been its greatest successes, regrets, and failures? What unfinished does it have? What is its greatest disappoint? What accomplishments give them the greatest pride?

Last week deputy party leader Loretta Butler-Turner said: “Mr Ingraham is a person who has put the FNM, in my opinion, not only in the winner’s column to be the government but he has also been an exemplary prime minister, an exemplary leader and certainly one who I consider – and I say this often – to be a reformer and a modernizer of the Bahamas. I have no rift with Mr Ingraham. The majority of the people in our party have no rift with him.”

If this be the case, then the FNM needs to work to establish this in the minds of the people and in the identity of the party. It will not be easy, because there is an opposition working towards the exact opposite objective. And, of course, whatever the party says and does will have to be tested against what Bahamians feel, historians say, and the record shows.

For now, Hubert Ingraham’s brand is damaged, because no one likes to be in the loser’s corner. But as the raw emotion of the moment passes and sound political reasoning kicks in, the FNM should let papa in from the dog house and let him take his rest as the party patriarch he is.

Any comments can be emailed to nnicolls@tribunemedia.net