The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I so wish that the so-called mandarins of the FNM would just stop talking nonsense. Frank Watson started the silliness when the FNM passed up a great opportunity to elect Loretta Butler Turner and get rid of Dr Hubert Minnis who is dragging the party down.

Mr. Watson, presumably having supported the re-election of Dr Minnis and recognising public disappointment with that choice, announced that Dr Minnis would be given six months to shape up.

What foolishness. He was telling the public that they were having problems with Dr Minnis but they elected him anyway hoping that in “six months” he would miraculously become a competent and inspiring leader; that in six months he would become an articulate leader; that in six months he would somehow attain the intellectual prowess needed to be a successful political leader.

None of which happened, of course. It was never going to happen and Mr Watson should not have attempted to sell FNMs and the Bahamian people such a ridiculous proposition.

Now, along comes Brent Symonette, another political genius (I speak sarcastically in case anyone misunderstands), with a proposition that the FNM, a respected and established national political party, should form a coalition with the DNA, Bran McCartney’s vanity party.

Too many Bahamians regarded the DNA as an attractive novelty in the last election and were cajoled into walking down Mr McCartney’s narcissistic garden path. They were seduced by a young man who had little to offer in the way of political leadership except a burning desire to be prime minister.

But now they are having a serious case of buyers’ remorse while Mr Symonette wants to fight the last election. In fact, Mr Symonette is proposing to throw Mr McCartney a political life raft just when his DNA is sprouting leaks and sinking. Brilliant!

It is an open secret that the FNM Members of Parliament have had it up to their necks with Dr Minnis. What the so-called mandarins like Mr Watson and Mr Symonette (and you too Mr Smith) need to do is to make every effort to get Dr Minnis to move aside.

FNMs are not like PLPs. They will punish their party for doing foolishness. So the mandarins should not believe that just because the PLP is very unpopular at the moment that that necessarily translates into an FNM victory.

Furthermore, even if the FNM can win with Dr Minnis, do they really want to inflict him on the Bahamian people as prime minister?

The choice for the FNM is so clear. Mrs Butler-Turner is decidedly a better choice than Dr Minnis. She is intelligent, she is articulate, she is fearless, she understands politics, and she has demonstrated that she can exercise remarkable discipline. She will undoubtedly attract to the FNM a number of disillusioned PLPs and DNAs, women and young people.

So, please, gentlemen, stop talking nonsense and do what you have to do.

Tired Old FNM

Nassau,

September 10,2015