The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

PROGRESSIVE Liberal Party Stalwart Councillor Valentine Grimes hinted yesterday that the PLP would not renominate Fort Charlotte MP Dr Andre Rollins to contest his seat in the next general election.

Mr Grimes, who headed the PLP disciplinary committee responsible for determining the fate of Dr Rollins after the parliamentarian criticised the Christie administration last year, made his comments to The Tribune while responding to Marco City MP Greg Moss’ shock resignation from the party yesterday.

In the lead up to the last general election, Prime Minister Perry Christie highlighted Mr Moss and Dr Rollins, along with Bamboo Town MP Renward Wells and others, as part of the party’s “new generation of leaders”.

However, such party stalwarts as Mr Grimes are admitting that the acceptance of these politicians has been a mixed success.

“It was an excellent idea, but some ideas are more fruitful than others,” he said. “This (Mr Moss) was one that didn’t pay as much dividends as it could have but there are good examples: Khaalis Rolle, Dion Smith, the Speaker (Dr Kendal Major). Moss didn’t work out and it’s obvious it doesn’t appear as if Rollins will work out. Moss was not a team player.”

He added: “When persons start off on the mindset of not being a team player, this happens. Rollins is already out there and stands no chance of political survival.”

Asked if this means the PLP will not renominate Dr Rollins for re-election in 2017, he said: “Take a guess.”

“The people of Fort Charlotte feel betrayed and that they have not been represented. We have to take a longer, harder look at persons already part of our mindset. You have to continue bringing people in, but there’s a difference between other new generation choices like Christie, Ingraham and myself – we were already part of the PLP political machinery; we were logical successors in the constituencies we ran in.”

Party sources have maintained that Ft Charlotte residents want former area MP Alfred Sears to be selected as the PLP’s standard-bearer in the next general election.

Meanwhile, Mr Moss announced his resignation from the PLP Monday night, saying the party no longer embraces the philosophical values that initially prompted its growth. He sent his resignation to party Chairman Bradley Roberts and Mr Christie yesterday.

To this, Mr Grimes said: “Every person who resigns from the PLP, whether it was Orville Turnquest, Arlington Butler, Sir Randol Fawkes, Paul Bradley, Cecil Wallace Whitfield, Hubert Ingraham, all of them say the same thing, every single group.

“I don’t question their reasoning, but in politics you have to be a team player. If you want to be a person with a big ego then you won’t find a place.”

“The only ones that survived (after leaving) were Hubert Ingraham and Perry Christie and they survived because the FNM decided not to run a candidate against them. If the PLP runs a candidate in the Marco City constituency and the FNM does, you won’t hear anything again about Greg Moss. The party will survive,” he said.

Mr Grimes served as the PLP’s MP for Fort Charlotte from July 1977 to 1992. He was a member of Mr Christie’s transition team following the party’s 2002 general election win and was legal advisor to the PLP.