The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

IF Marine Resources and Agriculture Minister V Alfred Gray’s prediction that former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham will return to the Free National Movement (FNM) to oust current FNM Leader Dr Hubert Minnis is 100 per cent accurate, politics being what it is in The Bahamas, it wouldn’t really surprise me.

Politics is a cutthroat industry. It has plenty of intrigue.

Having said that, I still stand by my belief that Ingraham is done with frontline politics. He has taken the country as far as he can go. This country has only had three prime ministers since majority rule, which was 47 years ago.

I find it hard to digest the prevailing belief among many Bahamians that only Perry Christie and Hubert Ingraham are smart enough to be prime minister.

I also find it hard to believe that FNM Deputy Leader Loretta Butler-Turner would just willingly give up her Long Island seat for Ingraham, in order to make way for his return to the FNM leadership post.

Gray must be aware The Punch’s recent front page article that claimed that 16 Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) MPs are allegedly plotting to remove Christie as PLP leader and prime minister.

Many of the alleged plotters owe Christie a debt of gratitude, because it was he who had either persuaded or at the very least influenced the PLP hierarchy to nominate them.

Yet The Punch story is saying that these people are undermining his authority.

The 14th century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer said in The Canterbury Tales: “The smiler with the knife under the cloak.’’

The rumour of Ingraham returning is just that – a rumour.

Listening to Gray, one would think that the FNM is the only party that is having leadership issues. If there is a grain of truth to what The Punch is saying about an imminent coup within the PLP, then one can safely assume that life within the PLP isn’t peaches and cream.

Gray would be better served offering his leader advice on how to neutralise the alleged coup.

Gray has made it known that if Ingraham returns, he will offer himself for another election run in the MICAL constituency. I fail to see the connection between MICAL and Ingraham. Even if Gray’s prediction is fulfilled, why should it preclude him from retiring, as he has promised in the past to do.

If Gray wants to run in 2017, as some political pundits are predicting Christie might do, then he should just come out and say so, rather than use Ingraham’s name as a scapegoat. 


KEVIN EVANS

Freeport,

Grand Bahama,

June 16, 2014.