The Tribune

Your Say

By DARRON CASH

THE Free National Movement has become a shadow of its former self. The party I love should be at a high watermark comparable to its position on August 19, 1992, the day of our first general election victory. Instead, our great FNM risks being washed away in a tide of obscurity and irrelevance, being sunk by an anchor of leadership that has been found wanting.

It is time for a change in the FNM.

I use the word, “leadership” deliberately. There are many people who share responsibility for this unfortunate position, but there is no escaping the harsh reality - the current dismal state of the FNM goes to leadership. More specifically, it goes to the leader, Hubert A Minnis.

It is time for the leader to seek a fresh mandate. I will elaborate on this in the course of the coming weeks, but it is clear to me that Dr Minnis has become the issue for the FNM. The mantra “Minnis can’t win” has gained disheartening traction over the last 18 months. But I submit that this issue is secondary to the larger issue of party unity.

“Can Minnis pull the FNM together?” That is the larger question. The evidence appears to be … no.

If our party leader has answered my earlier call for a “come to Jesus” event, he has certainly taken the circuitous route. I have not seen it happening, and neither have thousands of anxious and dispirited FNMs.

Evidence to the contrary is obvious. For far too long the FNM has been in perpetual decline. It is past time for the hemorrhage of support and goodwill to end.

Our leader, Dr Minnis, must be called upon to give a full accounting of his stewardship of the FNM. So too must everyone on his leadership team. A full convention with all the accountability factors built in is the right way for that to happen. That convention has to happen within the next 90 days. Waiting for a November convention would be the equivalent of what the Americans call “cruel and unusual” punishment. It needs to happen now. Consider only the most recent evidence of this: The Tribune headline says “FNMs up in arms at Rolle comments”. Then it goes on to quote unidentified “up in arms” FNM MPs.

In reading the accounts of the FNM’s “Watergate Tapes” one got the distinct impression that Senator (Lanisha) Rolle spoke for the leader. It is not hard to arrive at that conclusion. When Senator Rolle publicly criticised her elected parliamentary colleagues in an ill-considered and personal way and did not receive so much as a slap on the wrist from the party leader or the executive committee, it gave the clear impression that she was a sacred cow - her so-called youth and inexperience notwithstanding.

Senator Rolle was emboldened after her shock jock style comments on radio. So it was easy for MPs and many others to get the impression that when she spoke, she spoke for the leader.

What is most disturbing in the tapes from the sting operation is the continuing suggestion about the existence of some “shadow” executive team that is off somewhere meeting and determining the fate of the FNM to the exclusion of the elected parliamentary team and elected executive committee. One can now understand the thinking behind St Anne’s MP Hubert Chipman’s comments in the recently leaked email stream when he stated ... that the leader should “listen to voices that matter”. Clearly if one takes then Senator Rolle’s comments at face value, the leader does not consult, listen to, and has no time for his parliamentary colleagues. My party must now ask itself the hard question: what if the parliamentary team no longer has any time for the leader of the opposition? This is an untenable position for our party.

I will reiterate a previous statement; an early and full national convention can now be the only place to resolve this untenable position. Anything else would be the equivalence of shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.

Just over a week ago, before the most recent revelations, I suggested that our leader should seriously consider taking decisive steps to cut the FNM MPs who are not supporting him. I had no hesitation about giving the leader the benefit of the doubt. But now, the FNM version of the “Watergate Tapes” has changed all that.

Now, it looks as if the MPs have been on solid grounds in having serious concerns about their leader and how he operates. According to the then “Senior Senator”, the leader seems to lack confidence in his team, and this begs the question, which one of them really has the power?

It is now fair to say that there is a crisis of confidence in the FNM leader. ‎The only meaningful course available to the leader of the FNM is one that reveals true leadership. He must go before a full FNM convention - with a fresh and representative set of delegates to give an account of the party under his leadership. Given everything that has and has not transpired under his term in office, it is time for Dr Minnis to seek a fresh mandate.

As the FNM Central Council meets to deliberate our party’s date for convention, I paraphrase Lady Macbeth, “If it were done, then best it were done quickly.”

Darron Cash served as FNM chairman from 2012 to 2014. He is also a former FNM senator.