The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Progressive Liberal Party has not ruled out making Central Eleuthera MP Damian Gomez a nominee for the party in the next general election, Chairman Bradley Roberts suggested yesterday.

It is not clear if Mr Gomez is being considered for renomination in his current constituency, but Mr Roberts said Mr Gomez “has appeared before the Candidates Committee and will appear again.”

“I can’t say more,” he added.

His comments came after Mr Gomez told The Nassau Guardian that Prime Minister Perry Christie asked him TO step aside as the PLP’s candidate in the Central Eleuthera constituency.

Mr Gomez had previously told The Tribune that it was unclear if he would be renominated in that constituency as the PLP was considering where he could be placed to benefit the party most.

His revelation about Mr Christie’s request of him and the suggestion that he was being asked to leave the political scene caught some by surprise given his desire to run and his status as a respected lawyer in the country, one who was appointed a Queen’s Counsel by the government last year.

A decision to remove him from the frontline of PLP politics would raise eyebrows.

However, he said yesterday that there’s “nothing unusual” about the process the PLP is now taking with respect to his future in the organisation.

As for his next appearance before the PLP’s Candidates Committee, which is headed by Mr Christie, he said he is waiting for the party to get back to him on that matter.

As a PLP parliamentarian, Mr Gomez has been unique in his advocacy for greater transparency and accountability.

Since the resignation of Dr Andre Rollins and Greg Moss from the governing party, he is one of the few people willing to criticise what he perceives to be lack of progress the government has made on those issues.

He has repeatedly urged the government, for instance, to enact a campaign finance law and to establish a registry system requiring parliamentarians to publicly register the identity of donors giving to their constituencies and the amount they give.

He told The Tribune earlier this year that he received a poor response from other parliamentarians to his request when he asked them.

“I asked, but people don’t want that sort of information out,” he had said earlier. “That might explain why certain people get contracts and some don’t. Almost 200 years of behaviour is being challenged.”

Mr Gomez was appointed state minister for legal affairs by Mr Christie in 2012, but resigned last year, citing the need to take care of a legal issue involving financial issues connected with a commercial loan from the Bank of the Bahamas.