The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Prime Minister Perry Christie obviously understands the sheer implications of the majority of Bahamians voting ‘‘no’’ to legalising web shop gaming on Referendum Day. The prime minister told The Tribune that his government would have to fill the employment gap should the ‘‘no’’ vote campaign win.

This would pose a serious challenge to the government, which is already overwhelmed with an underperforming economy. During the election cycle, Christie and his 37 PLP candidates made it a point to always remind the Bahamian people that 30,000 plus persons were unemployed in this country.

And so if the Bahamian people vote ‘‘no’’ on January 28, an additional 3,000 to 4,000 persons employed in the web shop gaming industry would be added to an already crowded unemployment line.

These 3,000 plus Bahamians have dependents and financial obligations like every other responsible Bahamian adult. Clearly the closure of the web shop industry would not only affect the workers, but their dependents as well, who, no doubt, numbers in the thousands. If the PLP government goes ahead and closes down the web shops, it will suffer a catastrophic political backlash, the likes of which this nation has never witnessed before, in the next election.
 Indeed, even formidable candidates of the PLP such as Perry Christie, Glenys Hanna-Martin, Fred Mitchell, Shane Gibson, Obie Wilchcombe, Dr Bernard Nottage and Leslie Miller would find it difficult holding on to their respective constituencies, should the government dismantle the web shop industry.

Time will not cause poor Bahamian families counting on the web shop industry in order to put bread on their tables to forget the hardship and inconvenience such a radical process will cause.

On the other hand, if the Bahamian people say ‘‘yes’’ to web shop gaming and the PLP government legalises the industry, it will suffer a severe backlash from the evangelical branch of the church. For years the PLP government has been able to count on the church for political support. But that support will almost certainly evaporate should the PLP legalise gaming. Without the support of the church, the PLP would not have won the election. Should it anger the church with this gaming issue, it is difficult to see how the PLP would be able to pull off an election victory in 2017.

The PLP would have to scramble to find votes elsewhere. And so we can see that the PLP government faces a no-win situation. This is a classic damned if you do and damned if you don’t dilemma the prime minister faces. Christie knows full well that his government is between a rock and a hard place. Whatever happens on January 28th, the PLP government will have to face the ire of thousands of disgruntled Bahamian voters.


KEVIN EVANS

Freeport,

Grand Bahama,

January 16, 2013.