The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Deputy Chief Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

THE Free National Movement’s Central and South Abaco Constituency Association Chairman Victor Patterson yesterday defended FNM Leader Dr Hubert Minnis against accusations of betrayal and dishonesty levelled by area MP Edison Key last week regarding his candidacy snub.

Instead, Mr Patterson said it was Dr Minnis who continuously argued with the association that Mr Key should be given another run.

According to Mr Patterson, Dr Minnis’ intention was to reward Mr Key’s loyalty by offering the 78-year-old MP a Senate appointment and the agriculture and fisheries portfolio if the FNM was elected to office following the 2017 general election in exchange for his blessing for the party to use another standard bearer.

However, Mr Key objected and insisted that if he could not be the MP, then he wanted nothing at all, Mr Patterson said.

He said factoring in everything that surrounded this situation, he along with the association did not know why Mr Key had reacted with animosity towards Dr Minnis over the last several days.

“Mr Key announced that he would not be running again at the end of his term. This is not in dispute, it’s in The Tribune of March 16, 2015,” he said. “He told us we would need to find another candidate and so did the national party.

“We went about the constituency talking to people about who they would like and that sort of thing. In the course of doing that we also discovered though that that wasn’t the point of our investigation, that there was no enthusiasm for Mr Key to run again because basically when we’d say ‘well who did you like,’ they would say to the effect of ‘anyone but Mr Key’ and we would have to probe a bit further to find out who they would really want.

“At some point we started hearing that Mr Key might be interested in running again, but he never came back to us as the branch either to me as the chairman or to the branch to say that he changed his mind. He started talking about it in the press as a possibility, but he never came to us and we interpreted that as saying well if they can’t find anybody well maybe I’ll do it again. So we said we better wrap this up and make our choice.”

He added: “When we picked our likely candidate, I personally called Mr Key because I wanted him to come and meet with our potential candidate because the person who we chose, his late father was actually one of Mr Key’s big generals from back in the 1980s. I actually thought that Mr Key might be pleased to hand it off to the son of somebody who had worked really hard in the ’80s to get Mr Key elected.

“Mr Key rather colourfully informed me that he wouldn’t be interested in meeting with our choice, which was rather disappointing but it was what it was,” he claimed.

Mr Patterson said Dr Minnis insisted on rewarding Mr Key. Given this, he said, the association was surprised to hear accusations of “back stabbing and betrayal”.

“Obviously, Mr Key showed great loyalty to Dr Minnis in this whole leadership struggle with the rest of the party. We kept trying to get our candidate ratified and Dr Minnis who very clearly felt loyalty and appreciation to Mr Key, kept wanting us to reconsider Mr Key because obviously he wanted to reward him for being loyal to him.

“I understand politics, but we kept having to say ‘Doc you know the support just isn’t there’ and he kept asking if we were sure.

“To say that Dr Minnis was trying to get rid of Edison Key is wrong. He was doing everything and finally when he realised that we just weren’t going to break he came to me - and I can now say this because Edison Key has admitted this to the press - he (Dr Minnis) offered to make Mr Key a senator and the minister of agriculture.”

“I don’t know why Mr Key was not happy with that offer. So he basically said no to Dr Minnis. He wanted to be the MP or nothing.”

Mr Patterson also reiterated that no secret meetings took place on the island. He said on one occasion Mr Key welcomed party officials at the airport when they arrived. On another occasion, Mr Patterson admitted that there was a meeting, but neither Mr Key nor the candidate, who the association was backing, was invited. He said this decision was made so that those attending this meeting could speak freely.

Last week, Mr Key told The Nassau Guardian he will not run again on the FNM’s ticket and claimed that the Killarney MP was not a man of his word. Mr Key further claimed that Dr Minnis conspired with certain FNM supporters to end his political career. A part of this plan involved not informing him about secret meetings that took place in his constituency. Mr Key also claimed that there were “a few white dissidents”, led by the association chairman, who were involved in this conspiracy.

Mr Key admitted that he made the decision to join the “rebel seven” MPs in ousting Dr Minnis from the post of leader of the Official Opposition because of this situation.