The Tribune

By TANEKA THOMPSON

Tribune News Editor

tmthompson@tribunemedia.net

WHEN the Progressive Liberal Party embraced Dr Andre Rollins into its fold in 2011, I was surprised.

Before he joined the PLP, Dr Rollins was the front man for the now-defunct National Development Party. He spent the beginning of his career highlighting the shortcomings of the two major political parties.

However, he did not gain notoriety until the hotly contested Elizabeth by-election in 2010.

During the nomination process for that election, Dr Rollins was particularly disgusted with party politics.

I remember that nomination day clearly.

As the PLP’s candidate for Elizabeth, Ryan Pinder, made his way inside the nomination room, Dr Rollins squared off with a large gathering of PLP supporters present at the Thelma Gibson Primary School. While grasping a plastic bag filled with quarters, his $400 nomination fee, Dr Rollins shouted that he did not have to ‘kow-tow’ to Perry Christie or then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.

At the time, he said he was paying his fee with quarters in support of the many poor Bahamians who did not have hundred dollar bills at their disposal.

He seemed incensed with the status quo of the traditional party machinery and thumbed his nose at party supporters who blindly follow their leaders without question.

However, he learned a harsh political reality when the votes for the by-election came back and he lost dismally.

Soon after he was snapped up by the PLP, a party that wanted to harness his energy and outspokenness to its advantage.

After he entered the PLP, Dr Rollins appeared to shield his firebrand nature, choosing his words carefully when contacted for comment on issues and seeming to not want to upset the powers that be.

Breaking ranks

However, something shifted in the former Gaming Board chairman’s outlook in late 2013, when he first broke ranks with his party during an interview with this reporter, criticising the government’s plans for value added tax implementation and its failure, at that point, to legalize and regulate Bahamian owned web shops.

He spent much of last year publicly bashing the governing Progressive Liberal Party and Prime Minister Perry Christie over a litany of issues – going so far as to say the country needs new leadership.

However, the outspoken MP has emerged from the political fallout that ensued seemingly unscathed.

After a protracted, three-month long disciplinary process, the PLP’s National General Council decided not to suspend Dr Rollins for his biting critiques of his own party and open disdain for Mr Christie’s leadership style. The suspension recommendation came from the party’s disciplinary committee.

It was the prime minister himself who intervened on behalf of Dr Rollins, using his clout within the PLP to ensure that the “new generation” MP was not put out to the political pasture.

The obvious question is, why would the prime minister step in to seemingly save the political career of an MP who has roasted him more voraciously than most members of the official opposition?

The answer, according to Mr Christie, is that the Centreville MP did not want to inflict the same fate on Dr Rollins that he had suffered at the hands of the PLP decades ago.

And according to PLP insiders, those in the upper echelons of the party did not want to make Dr Rollins “a martyr” by suspending him and giving him more traction in the press than he already has.

Mr Christie might think that letting Dr Rollins off the hook makes the PLP seem like a more democratic party, one that has confidence in its younger generation and does not flinch at internal criticism.

However, the lack of action also underscores the troubling image that has dogged Mr Christie since his first term as prime minister; one of a weak leader that allows Cabinet ministers and backbenchers free rein to walk all over him. Last week, shortly after the NGC made its decision, Mr Christie inferred that the ball now lies in Dr Rollins’ court.

“I wanted people to know my own philosophy when it comes to governance of a political organisation,” he said, “and when it comes to the Progressive Liberal Party that had in its own past denied me a nomination, invited me back in, made me a Cabinet minister, and enabled me to become leader of the party and prime minister, that party has historically demonstrated in my case a level of understanding and maturity.

“I told them from a political personal philosophical point of view, I have always been someone who has argued that a party must have a revolving door, that people have the right to flow in and flow out, and that we are going to protect the discipline of the party in a sense that we are not going to allow flagrant breaches of the party.

“But with respect to brother Rollins,” he said Thursday night, “the Progressive Liberal Party, for acts related to me, must not make a decision to suspend him.”

However, only a day earlier, Dr Rollins stood in the House of Assembly and castigated his party for a number of grievances, mainly selling a myriad of election promises, now broken, to voters.

His vitriolic contribution came during debate on the Electricity and Renewable Energy Amendment Bill.

He spoke of the high cost of electricity and sub-par infrastructure of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation.

He said the country is nearly at the point of “social unrest” because of the burden put on taxpayers.

During his speech, Dr Rollins also lamented the high murder count and the government’s failure to arrest this area of crime. He put on an apparent defence of his problems with the governing party, explaining that shining a light on the government’s shortcomings should not be seen as a negative thing.

“Speaking about it does not mean that you want to make your party or the government look bad,” he said. “But unless we talk about it and get serious with trying to deal with it, we are going to go back, some of us, in the next election and we are going to be full of excuses as to why nothing happened to change it.”

He dealt another blow to the PLP, harping on the party’s failure to bring about many of the promises it sold voters ahead of the 2012 general election to secure a victory.

“We came into power at the last election promising change. The question we have to ask ourselves is, are things any different? Because if you are a change agent and you do not effect change then obviously you have to rebrand yourself and say that you are something else next time.

“I believe that every one of the people you saw coming into government for the first time genuinely felt that they were coming into office to effect change.”

What next?

By his own admission last week, Dr Rollins has no plans to censor himself in parliamentary debates to satisfy the older generation of the PLP.

He knows that his words resonate with many people who are disenchanted with the old political guard and demand accountability from those they elect to public office.

It will serve him better politically to continue to carve out a niche as a fiery crusader, not afraid to buck up against the status quo.

It remains to be seen if the PLP will continue to be kind to Dr Rollins and select him as a standard-bearer in the next general election.

His frank nature does not have to be the death knell for his future within the PLP.

Loftus Roker, former Cabinet minister in the Pindling administration, was able to survive similar attempts to wipe him out politically.

In 1975, a vote of no confidence was defeated against Mr Roker during a meeting of the NGC.

The resolution to oust Mr Roker from Cabinet – he was minister of health at the time – came after Mr Roker urged then Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling to wipe out the corruption” he claimed was rocking the PLP to its “very foundation.”

According to reports, Sir Lynden was instrumental in ensuring Mr Roker survived the vote, although there were many in the party who thought he should be disciplined for his insinuations.

And in 1984, while facing intense local and international scrutiny over corruption concerns, Mr Christie, then tourism minister, and Hubert Ingraham, then housing minister, were fired from the Cabinet. In the lead up to their dismissals, the two men reportedly confronted Sir Lynden about the corruption concerns.

Mr Christie ran successfully as an Independent candidate in 1987 before rejoining the PLP in 1990.

Only time will tell if Dr Rollins will remain with the PLP, has the mettle to be elected as an Independent candidate or if he will join another party.

Whatever the outcome, I’m sure the doctor will continue to grab headlines.

What do you think? Email comments to tmthompson@tribunemedia.net