The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.com

FORMER Free National Movement Chairman Darron Cash yesterday launched a scathing attack on his own party saying its supporters were “tearing their hair out” and are frustrated with their leader Dr Hubert Minnis who is not moving the FNM in the direction of a decisive 2017 general election victory.

Mr Cash said unless Dr Minnis could get the public support of every opposition member of Parliament, the party has no choice but to go into a full convention with elections.

In a lengthy statement on his Facebook page, the former Carmichael constituency candidate, who lost to Dr Daniel Johnson in the 2012 election, said the FNM does not appear unified on two major issues – the leader and the mission of winning the next general election.

Meanwhile, attorney Michael Scott, who has acted as the party’s legal advisor, agreed with Mr Cash’s statement commenting under the post that very few bought into Dr Minnis as the party’s leader.

Mr Cash’s statement came as party insiders told The Tribune yesterday that supporters who fund the FNM have threatened to “turn off the faucet” if Dr Minnis continues to lead the organisation.

Another source said that Dr Minnis was recently asked to attend a meeting with the parliamentary team who expressed that they were not pleased with his leadership.

Mr Cash’s comments also follow a report in The Nassau Guardian’s National Review section this week, which said several FNM MPs had no confidence in Dr Minnis and were plotting to petition Governor General Dame Marguerite Pindling to have him removed as leader of the Official Opposition.

“From the outside looking in, all does not appear to be well in the FNM,” Mr Cash wrote. “Our supporters are pulling their hair out. It is time to call a spade a spade. Two issues frustrate the hell out of FNM supporters: one, the leader, despite his considerable talents, is not winning hearts and minds and inspiring confidence to the extent needed. Two: the party does not appear to be united - firstly around the leader and secondly around the mission of winning a general election. The latter problem is exacerbated by the former.

“The fact of the matter is that the leader of my party is not moving the party closer to a decisive general election victory and those closest to him seem to know it, i.e. some members of Parliament ... and something needs to be done. This I submit is the implication of the National Review article and why it begged for a considered response. Something must be done.”

Mr Cash said the party must have a “come to Jesus” moment where FNMs forgive and forget the past, return to preparations geared toward the next election and focus on the dreams of Bahamians.

“The attempted fix of a one-day leadership election/convention last November did not work,” Mr Cash added. “The fix applied was either the wrong medicine or the wrong dosage. Whatever your perspective, the FNM mind and body are not one and they must be made whole. That is a function of leadership. It is a function of the leader.

“The wounds of disunity are deep but they are self-inflicted. The leader is the one who must solve the problem. I’ll illustrate. I was distressed to read the National Review story about the FNM ‘Cabinet in Waiting.’ No one was ‘on the record’ but the story still seemed true. I thought I would wait to see what the official party response would be. Today (Tuesday) the response is ‘no comment’.”

Mr Cash said in his opinion “no comment” is not good enough.

“The public and more importantly our supporters are wondering what in the hell is going on. Why can’t the FNM get its act together? The burden to get it together and bring the team together is the leader’s job.

“There is a fundamental problem if the evidence of a party leader (whose) lack of support starts with the elected persons in his shadow Cabinet. (Yesterday) only the deputy FNM leader pledged allegiance to the leader. And once again the FNM MP from (Central and) South Abaco (Edison Key) acknowledged that he was out of the loop,” Mr Cash said.

His latter comments were in reference to recent published comments from Mr Key who said he was aware of an alleged plan to oust Dr Minnis by a minority of FNM MPs, however he said he supported Dr Minnis.

Meanwhile, reacting to Mr Cash’s post, Mr Scott wrote on Facebook: “Darron, now we are getting somewhere! In digesting your comments I am reminded of the old FNM slogan ‘It is a matter of trust!’ I will put the matter simply in a few sentences. It goes beyond the parliamentarians to every single voter in search of change in this country. You must first buy into the leader before you buy into the vision. Very few really buy into Minnis and that is pellucidly clear to me and he would do well to remember ‘how you make others feel about themselves says a lot about you!’”

Dr Minnis could not be reached for comment yesterday.