Prime Minister Perry Christie.
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Do you think Alfred Sears poses a serious challenge to Prime Minister Perry Christie's position as PLP leader?
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By KHRISNA VIRGIL
Deputy Chief Reporter
kvirgil@tribunemedia.net
PRIME Minister Perry Christie said he does not feel threatened by former Attorney General Alfred Sears’ bid to challenge him for the leadership of the Progressive Liberal Party, despite rumblings within the organisation that young supporters and Bahamians want a new direction.
“It’s not a problem,” Mr Christie exclusively told The Tribune yesterday following the morning sitting of the House of Assembly when he was questioned regarding Mr Sears’ intention to bring to an end to his nearly 20-year run at the helm of the governing party.
Mr Christie was first elected as leader of the PLP in 1997.
“There is no problem at all,” Mr Christie added. “We are a wonderful party, a big tent with strong traditions of democratic functions. All is well.”
Pressed further, Mr Christie suggested that he was not concerned about a leadership race at the PLP convention, saying the rules of the party will take precedence over everything else. The event is expected to take place in November.
“I am leader of the party and I am focused on developmental issues in the country. People expect me to be able to deal with mortgage relief (and) Baha Mar. That’s what we are doing now and so our convention goes by rules and once people comply with the rules we are okay.”
On Sunday, Mr Sears announced his intent to challenge Mr Christie for the PLP’s top post, meaning that Mr Christie will face the first challenge to his leadership since National Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage and attorney Paul Moss faced off against him in 2009.
For months, Mr Sears has been laying the groundwork for a leadership run, having recently released a list of proposals he intends to champion if he becomes leader of the PLP.
He spent recent months canvassing the country to make an assessment about whether it would be wise to run for leader. Mr Sears, recently ratified as the PLP’s election candidate for Ft Charlotte, pledged to run a “clean” race, one without personal attacks.
Mr Christie stirred controversy recently when he said he seeks to remain leader of the PLP to provide stability to the party and because young members in government have urged him to continue on. The comments, which were made while he was a guest on the “Ed Fields Live” show on Kiss FM, sparked an immense backlash.
While Deputy Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis rejected Mr Christie’s assertions that the party would be unstable without him as leader, former PLP MP Philip Galanis issued a more forceful rebuke saying the prime minister’s comments were the “height of nonsense” and bordered on “delusional”.
In a frank interview, Mr Galanis said there are many persons within the party who are capable of bringing a breath of fresh air into the country, ridding it of the “Christie fatigue” it now experiences. He insisted that if it was Mr Christie’s desire to remain on as prime minister, he should just be intellectually honest and say so.
He went on to explain that despite Mr Christie’s constant mantra that his team was a “bridge to the future,” his declaration on Monday was an admission that he failed to appoint persons who could actually succeed him.
Former PLP Chairman Raynard Rigby has also chastised the prime minister, pointing to growing frustration among young PLPs with his leadership.
He recently suggested that this current administration lacked ideas and vision, which has stagnated the country’s growth and fed frustration among young Bahamians that there are limited opportunities available of which to take advantage.
Mr Rigby was critical of the Christie-led government, insisting that it failed to push progressive policies.
The former party executive added that if Bahamians want to change the course of the country, the electorate must move away from correlating personalities with the ability to govern as this has not served the needs of the country over the last several decades.
Comments
Well_mudda_take_sic 8 years, 3 months ago
This comment was removed by the site staff for violation of the usage agreement.
Reality_Check 8 years, 3 months ago
Once again here's all you need to know about Sears and Maynard-Gibson being instrumental in 'twisting the law and the facts' in order to have the court's original guilty verdict against Craig Flowers quashed and his criminal record expunged. Flowers was simply allowed to walk away a free man notwithstanding the overwhelming factual evidence warranting his imprisonment.
http://www.tribune242.com/news/2015/jun…
TalRussell 8 years, 3 months ago
Comrades! Strange as it be there are those who still believe Papa Hubert supports and remains committed to the Red Movement party he once lead. I say pure political science fiction poppycock. What will they peddle next, how Papa has his own Washington cherry tree growing in his Cooper's Town backyard? One Papa Hubert myth is as deserving as any other. Right? So should the one former law partner remain as committed to the other law partner. Right? With Papa publicly backing his own PLP horse in the 2017 race it truly will be the strangest General in Bahamaland's short, very short, organized political parties history.
banker 8 years, 3 months ago
WTF? My dear Tal -- you are off your meds again. This is about PLP succession and leadership. I checked to make sure that "FNM" or "Ingraham" were not in the article, and they weren't. You have a schizophrenia translator in you head that is like a Rorschach ink blot. Every answer is "Red Shirts" or "Papa". I would suggest that you consummate your love affair with Papa and the Red Shirts to effect a cure.
http://tribune242.com/users/photos/2016…
TalRussell 8 years, 3 months ago
Comrade Banker you keep on kissing Papa Hubert's ring. The pope is the one wearing the fisherman's ring - not Papa.
I read into the story that by now readers need to learn to read what the reporter should've wrote but either didn't want to write, or may have been prevented from writing by their or theirs Editor's/Publisher's political loyalty. May I ask why you never blogged a single word when Papa Hubert went all public to throw his support behind his former law partner to remain the leader of governing PLP, and he did so publicly at a time when his own party never got one single world of encouragement from the Fisherman's from Cooper's Town? If that is how you reds operate-it is a scary strange form of party unity.
Likewise you never blogged a single word about Montagu's Richard's unsettling remarks against poor single two or more babies mothers? Some bridge the red Movement is building with the poor?
banker 8 years, 3 months ago
You are as bad as Donald Trump with the "extended version" of the truth. Laughable that you know what the reporters wanted to write. Methinks that their powers of cogitation are not analysis bent, and they wrote exactly what they wanted to write for their audience. The only thing "deep" in the Bahamas, is the criminality of the PLP.
But just to be accurate, the only context of the mention of Ingraham, was your mention of him. Then you go off into a narcissistic soliloquy on something or other to divert attention from the original statement.
As to Lord Montagu's diatribe on the tube-tying festival for PLP female reproductors, I did proffer a view. I suggested free abortion clinics peppered all over New Providence, with loyalty cards, free hams, a free third one, a date with Fweddy and a chance to win a car. No fetus shall defeat us! Against abortion? Don't have unwanted kids.
Well_mudda_take_sic 8 years, 3 months ago
Just do like most of us have been doing for years.....ignore anything posted by him. He feeds on attention and thinks he's the cat's meow...little does he know.
ThisIsOurs 8 years, 3 months ago
Is that a recent photo? I like his hair, the colour and cut look great.
banker 8 years, 3 months ago
He stopped using brown Kiwi Shoe Polish.
Emac 8 years, 3 months ago
Lmao
ThisIsOurs 8 years, 3 months ago
Yeah it looks natural, looks grey around the edges, very nice
TalRussell 8 years, 3 months ago
Comrades! You can read the red tea leaves how you want to but what in the hell can be more relevant to the PLP's leadership race brewing than when the man who served as your governing party's three-term prime minister, went out his way publicly to refuse to support neither Minnis nor Loretta as Leader of the Red Movement but has no problem with his going all public to narrow the field of candidates down to one PLP before an convention election for leader of the current PLP governing party is held, all the blogging whatever comes in your mind's in an attempt at avoiding ever having to discuss the real Papa issue will not prevent the bad smell the Fisherman's from Cooper's Town does emits to the 2017 electorate by his disunity statements.
John 8 years, 3 months ago
A STAGED EVENT. Christie will obviously "crush" him even with the thousands of $US he had stashed in his closet. Politics and politicians, Just like toilet paper was made to clean up afterwards. Not to worry not only are the PLP gang busy at work to make themselves look better (shoe polish in the hair and popularity among young voters and sweeping scandals under the carpet and the Oriental rug (not to mention the Bah Mar Chinese) but they are also busy at work trying to destabilize the official opposition and to make them appear weak and divided. Christie and the PLP have a lot riding on this Election 2017. So why don't they call on their Chinese gangsters to help bail them out and open Bah Mar...except Bah Mar now taste like Ribeana in Bahamian people's mouth.. Not that good and the benefits are yet to be proven.
banker 8 years, 3 months ago
The Chinese have already said that The Pointe will miss its 2017 opening. Baha Mar is not on their list at all. It is a sinkhole for money, and EXIM will not give them more good money to chase after bad.
And EXIM will not sell for pennies on the dollar, so it will just rot there like other unfinished Chinese projects around the world.
Baha Mar is the carrot. As soon as the PLP get uppity with the Chinese, all they have to day is say "Mind, or we won't finish Baha Mar". It will be a virtual perpetual lever over Crisco and the PLP.
Greentea 8 years, 3 months ago
wrong politician- i think it was Peet who had the money in the closet.
John 8 years, 3 months ago
Bah Mar is another golden calf the Chinese built in honor of their God. They never intended for it to open. And now they dare the (Bahamian) government to make them do otherwise. Then it no longer a bank with a mortgage but a communist country owned bank with a mortgage. A mortgage that has the people's assets tied up (or down). Where is the sovereignty of the Bahamas now? O king Christie? Maybe it's time you go to God for answers and not to yourself
TalRussell 8 years, 3 months ago
Comrades! Baha Mar's time clock into the future should have told the Papa Hubert regime, not to drink your free Izmirlian champagnes just yet. It was a bad mistake from the minute prime minister Papa Hubert ordered his DPM Brent to sign thousands Chinese nationals works permits. Maybe the best use ahead for Baha Mar would be turn it into a Chinese Village fiasco, for the tourists take pictures of in the background. What about if we relocate all the Fish Fry shacks from Kelly's Island, out to Cable Beach?
banker 8 years, 3 months ago
So Crisco Butt goes to China to beg the Chinese premier Li Keqiang to open Baha Mar. He goes up to the guard post of the premier's office and says "My name is Perry Christie from the Bahamas and I am here for Premier Li Kegiang".
The guard looks him up and down, and picks up the phone. When someone answers it, he says "Can you please tell the premier that his taxi is here.".
John 8 years, 3 months ago
Perry Christie was brought up in a Christian home and in the fear of God. He know what happens when men become proud and boastful and out of the favor of God. He knows what has to be done to get Bah Mar open but he he decided to bow down to strange gods and forsake his own. Go to his most trusted spiritual advisors, and that doesn't mean political cronies
John 8 years, 3 months ago
Ok so it was Peet with the stash of U$? Well suppose the delegates decide to vote for Alfred Sears "just for the hell of it" and unintentionally unseat PGC as leader of the PLP... Think that will make a shocking news day? Or maybe it will not get to the public before they have a recount and fix it.
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