The Tribune

WE HAVE tried to stay out of the FNM’s leadership quarrel, but can’t resist dipping our pen in today when its chairman asks a question the answer to which seems so obvious that we wonder if indeed the FNM is slipping its moorings.

In today’s Tribune, Michael Pintard says he expects his party to hold its annual convention this year, but there is a possibility that there will be no party elections. In other words none of the organisation’s executive positions will be contested. It will be a convention without an election. Dr Hubert Minnis and his executive — all elected at a one-day convention last year — will lead the party into the 2017 election.

However, the party is split over Dr Minnis’ leadership. There are those who pleaded for Dr Minnis to be given time to learn the ropes and develop into a strong party leader. They were satisfied that he could do the job and win the government from the inept hands of politicians who seem to fumble every opportunity given them.

Dr Minnis has had ample time to unite his party behind him, and to demonstrate the leadership qualities needed to wrest the government from the PLP.

In our opinion, he has failed. We have never seen the FNM in such disarray and so divided.

We cannot deny that Dr Minnis may have many good qualities, but from the very beginning we have not seen in him the quality of leadership needed to win an election. He is just not a political leader. And so the leadership question has to be settled quickly — in or out of a convention– and the party has to be unified.

However, what has drawn us out on this leadership contest was FNM chairman Pintard’s comment that he found it amazing that there was a preoccupation in the country with the FNM’s plans to go into a convention when the PLP government continues its dismal performance, which he considered the worst of any previous administration.

This statement by Mr Pintard suggests that he, like Dr Minnis, does not have the pulse of the people.

We have yet to hear a Bahamian say — whether he be FNM, PLP, DNA or non- committed — that he wants to see the return of a PLP government. Most to whom we have talked — especially among the working class PLP— are wondering how they can get a new government before the year is out. They don’t believe that the country can suffer much longer with the current unemployment, escalating crime and so many lost opportunities.

So, Mr Pintard, whether you realise the importance of this party election or not, the Bahamian people need a strong opposition to relieve them of the ten plagues of Egypt. How the FNM conducts itself is of utmost importance to the average Bahamian — that is why the leadership question and a strong opposition is of interest to most Bahamians looking to a national election that we all wish would come sooner rather than later.

As the FNM is the only credible opposition, it has to stop gambling with this country’s future — therefore a strong leader who can pull the country together and include enough intelligent, experienced and honest people is sorely needed _ and urgently.

In our opinion, Dr Hubert Minnis is not that leader.

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Neglected New Providence roads

Bahamians have been complaining about the neglected roads — and they have much to complain about as drivers lurch from one pothole to another.

Central Grand Bahama MP Neko Grant has reason to criticise this government for the disrepair of New Providence’s roads. He was responding to comments made by Deputy Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis who in a recent TV interview said the condition of the roads was what the PLP government inherited as the result of the years of neglect under the FNM government.

This time we do not even have to go to our files to know that this is not true.

When the FNM government first came to power in 1992, almost the first order of business was to clean up the shanty-town look of downtown Nassau and repair the roads.

The run-down look and disrepair of the roads was again left behind at the end of the first Christie administration. The Ingraham government was returned in 2002 and the cleaning up operation and road repair started all over again — it was almost the first order of business.

Because of our curiosity as to why cleanliness did not seem to be as important to a PLP government as to an FNM government, we gave this government a year in office, and then took a tour. And what did we discover — overgrown verges, dirty looking downtown and pot holed roads. They even seem incapable of keeping our environment clean.

And Mr Pintard stands in wonderment as to why Bahamians are so interested in the future of his party. Bahamians urgently need an alternative to the PLP.

We suggest that the FNM wake up and get their act together, because as an outsider looking in all we see is a lot of politicians putting self before country.

Bahamians who know The Tribune should know by now that such selfishness is something that we can never support — especially in government that when elected should govern for the good of all of the people.