The Tribune

AFTER reading PLP chairman Bradley Roberts’ rant on Friday criticising FNM leader Dr Hubert Minnis for “flip-flopping” in his support for the recently failed Constitutional Referendum there are those who are wondering whether the old political battle axe is starting to slip.

According to Mr Roberts, Dr Minnis, “having voted for the four bills in parliament, changed his mind mid-stream and voted against the bills on referendum day”. According to Dr Minnis, he did not vote against the bills, but having voted, he declined to tell the press how he voted.

How Dr Minnis voted is not the issue. However, for Bradley Roberts to make it an issue is astounding in view of history and the behaviour of the PLP when in opposition. Does Mr Roberts not recall a similar referendum that would have given Bahamian women and their children equal standing as their husbands and fathers under the law and the role that his party played in defeating it? Has Bradley Roberts’ memory suddenly gone blank? Doesn’t he recall the February 27, 2002, referendum when the Christie government, then in Opposition, voted in the House of Assembly on Monday, January 7, 2002, to throw its full support behind the same issue sponsored by the then FNM government. However, by February 1, when Mr Christie should have been out on the hustings ostensibly to recommend that the public support the referendum, he suddenly announced that the PLP had had a change of heart. The date for the referendum — had not yet been set — when Opposition Leader Christie announced at a town meeting on constitutional reform that the PLP had withdrawn its support.

“I, therefore, call upon the prime minister to pull back and cancel or postpone the plans for the referendum. It should be left to the next government of The Bahamas to do it the right way,” The Tribune reported on February 1, 2002.

The gauntlet had been thrown into the ring – it was no longer a bipartisan vote to make all Bahamians equal under the law — it was the opening of the 2002 election campaign. Opened by no other than now Prime Minister Christie who saw and snatched the opportunity to fight an election rather than a referendum.

There are those commentators today who still – wanting to blame the fiasco on the FNM — maintain that it was then Prime Minister Ingraham who made the referendum political when he said: “Whoever wins Wednesday’s referendum will no doubt become the next government of The Bahamas.” Mr Ingraham had made this statement in Freeport on Friday, February 4, 2002 – about a week before the referendum. In fact, it was Mr Christie who was the one who at the end of January had declared the election.

It was the very manner in which the 2002 referendum was manoeuvred by the PLP in 2002 that contributed to the confusion that cost them last week’s referendum. The buzz word was: In 2002 they told us to vote “no” to the same question. This year they have told us to vote “yes.” What do they think we are - fools?” Maybe Mr Roberts would like to get his memory in gear and answer their question.

The following is a part of the editorial that we wrote in this column on February 28, 2002, a day after the first referendum had been defeated. Headed: “The people have spoken, but were they duped?” – it could have been written about last week’s defeat. It started:

“The people have spoken. Yesterday voters overwhelmingly rejected five proposed amendments to the Constitution in the country’s first referendum.

“It is often claimed that the ‘voice of the people is the voice of God,’ but yesterday’s ‘no’ vote was anything but the voice of God it was the voice of a people filled with fear, bedevilled by ignorance and grounded in prejudice.

“‘Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear,” said Bertrand Russell.

“It was this ‘great fear’ that opposition forces fine-tuned and played on in the various communities.

“The proposal to give the Bahamian woman the same rights as their menfolk was soundly defeated by Bahamian voters.

“We are not surprised. Listening to the various talk-shows one is left with the distinct impression that there are many men – too many for comfort – who sincerely believe that man, no matter how ignorant or foolish, was created to rule over women. In their minds women are still their chattel and playthings.

“An Eleuthera resident telephoned when the returns were coming in — at a point when it was clear that all five referendum amendments had been lost. He was distraught. Distraught at the level of ignorance of his people.

“‘The people,’ complained the caller, ‘don’t read, they don’t travel, they are not exposed to ideas. The extent of their wanderings are to Miami and Opa-Locka’s Flea Market. If they take a cruise, all they do is eat and drink.’

“He said that in Eleuthera the PLP spread the rumour that if women were given equal rights with men, they would marry Haitians and Jamaicans and take over the country. They were content that Bahamian men could marry foreign women, but Bahamian women marrying foreign men, and their husbands being given the same rights as the foreign wives of Bahamian men – well that was just too much castor oil for one day.

“Surprisingly enough, many women, felt the same way. They voted against themselves.

“The caller said that in various polling divisions in north Eleuthera, many confused and frightened FNMs, rather than voting ‘no’, did not vote at all.

“‘One woman told me,’ he said, ‘that she agreed with all of the questions on the referendum, and wanted to vote ‘yes’, but her party told her to vote no.’ She was PLP.

“She was too ill-informed to know that she was being given the opportunity to vote for her own betterment, and that betterment had nothing to do with her party. She did not understand that a referendum was not an election. The first referendum question was to give her a vote for herself, not her party’s candidate.

“These PLP politicians who voted ‘yes’ in parliament on the referendum amendments to make themselves look good when history is written, had advised their supporters to vote ‘no.’ The people did their dirty work for them. And it is the people who will look backward and foolish when history is written…

“The PLP has always talked the right talk when it has come to women’s rights, but their record of implementation has been almost non-existent. During their 25 years in power their behaviour against many women and their families was cruel. Their decisions demonstrated that the sanctity and unity of the home meant nothing to them…“

And so the 2002 editorial continued. However, little has changed in the past 14 years and so as time moves on an opportunity has been lost.