The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE fallout from Prime Minister Perry Christie’s suggestion that the Progressive Liberal Party would become unstable if he were to step down as leader continued yesterday with Fort Charlotte MP Dr Andre Rollins saying Mr Christie has “manufactured” a sketchy reason to substantiate his decision to remain leader.

Dr Rollins’ comments came as former PLP parliamentarians Philip Galanis and George Smith also criticised Mr Christie’s statement a day after Deputy Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis rejected the notion that the party would fall apart if Mr Christie leaves.

The prime minister said one other reason he wishes to remain leader is that young members of his government have urged him to do so.

“His comment,” Dr Rollins said, “was evidence that the prime minister is manufacturing reasons to hold on to power by referencing unnamed young parliamentarians who he claims have convinced him that he needs to stay on as leader. I assure you that any PLP ‘new generation leader’ who publicly says the country and PLP party is best served by Mr Christie remaining leader and prime minister would be harshly ridiculed and discredited by the vast majority of Bahamians.”

Dr Rollins, who quit the PLP last year, called Mr Christie “self-absorbed,” saying he is concerned “with satisfying his own ego rather than doing what is in the country’s best interest.”

He also claimed that Mr Christie’s desire to remain leader is part of an effort to prevent Mr Davis from ascending to the job.

“The PM is eager to carry the PLP into the next election because he and other senior parliamentarians do not want Philip Davis to become the next leader and they know full well that if the prime minister were to demit office before the next election, there is no one within the PLP who can defeat Mr Davis in a race for leader. The hope is that by waiting until after the election, Mr Christie will have denied Mr Davis the opportunity to ever become leader of the PLP.”

Dr Rollins said that Mr Christie’s statement is also part of an attempt to ensure parliamentarians don’t challenge him.

“The established culture of the PLP is that the leadership of the party ought never to be pursued unless the leader makes it known that he no longer wishes to lead,” he said. “This has meant that the only way to remove a sitting leader of the PLP is to embarrass them into leaving following a landslide defeat at the polls as the FNM did in 1997, leading to Sir Lynden’s subsequent retirement.”

On the condition of anonymity, one PLP MP who said he would support Mr Davis in a leadership race told The Tribune yesterday that the Cat Island, Rum Cay and San Salvador MP enjoys significant support within the party and is not disliked by PLP MPs.

To the PLP parliamentarian, Mr Christie’s assertion that young people in his government have urged him to remain leader is incredulous.

“The prime minister wants to stay on and most people wouldn’t say anything about it because if you object to it and you in the Cabinet then you got to resign,” the parliamentarian said. “From what I gather, he said that young members of the Cabinet asked him to stay on. That could just be them saying ‘I want a promotion.’

“It’s normal for people to vie for the leadership. These things happen in politics. The party is over 60 years old. To think we would now become unstable all of a sudden because Mr Christie is retiring would be a damnation of him as leader if that was the legacy that would be created.”