The Tribune

EDITOR. The Tribune.

If you needed proof that politics in the Bahamas is farce, look no further than the saga of Tennyson Wells and the FNM.

The party had their convention in June and concluded that they should all sing kumbaya and make nice for the cameras. The pretence was upheld for a short while until the grand wizard of lost causes, the oligarch Mr. Wells decided to stick his foot into party business that simply doesn’t concern him.

Tennyson was sidelined during the convention because the optics of him, a former PLP sympathizer, as puppet master didn’t look good for the supreme leader, Dr. Hubert Minnis. This week Tennyson decided it was time to pounce in a vainglorious attempt to recapture the headlines.

He still has a thing for Long Island and an even bigger beef with the FNM’s representative for Long Island, Loretta Butler-Turner. Maybe she refused to genuflect when he entered the room, or she didn’t kiss his ring, or something petty like that, but Tennyson is a man who can never let bygones be bygones.

If he were a true-true FNM then maybe he would be worth listening to. But this man is a political opportunist who has no loyalty except, in my opinion, to the almighty dollar and he will always prey on weakness and fecklessness.

Last week, fresh off an attempt by Minnis, the Lord and Master of the new and degraded FNM, to show that there was unity in the party, Tennyson gave an interview that can only be seen as a rebuke of Minnis and a brazen attempt to usurp the power that the delegates had again vested in the self-proclaimed champion of the small man, the multi-millionaire gynaecologist cum Opposition Leader cum wannabe Prime Minister.

Tennyson saw it as his job to publicly spank Butler-Turner or having the audacity to “humiliate” Minnis in public. Never mind that Minnis humiliates himself all the time and when he gets tired he has Bobo and Toggie to do it for him.

Butler-Turner’s great sin was in smelling herself and thinking for a brief moment that she was a democrat in a democratic organization; that she could follow the democratic process and challenge Minnis for the leadership of the party.

Let’s leave to the side the spectacular manner by which Butler Turner ended her bid to challenge the king of the FNM jungle, and concentrate on her absolute right so to do. In so doing she actually made Minnis a better opponent for Prime Minister Perry Christie in the general election.

But that’s not how the great oligarch saw it. To him she was an uppity spoiled brat who needed to be brought down a peg. Tennyson implied to reporters that he gives the orders to Minnis, not the other way around.

It was he who gave the order to draft a petition to deny her a nomination in Long Island. Tennyson has his navel string buried in Deadman’s Cay and he feels that gives him the right to lecture leaders of the FNM on who their MP should be.

Tennyson’s penchant for self-delusion runs deeper than Dean’s Blue Hole just outside of Clarence Town. But his motives are not as pure.

Were he alive today the founding leader of the FNM, Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, would probably say his greatest failing was in trusting Tennyson back in 1977.

Tennyson was a rookie lawyer who mastered the art of blowing smoke and he did it so effectively that it blinded Sir Cecil. He thought he could defy the staunch wishes of the voters of Long Island and impose Tennyson on them. It was a moment of careless and unnecessary bravado that tested the young party and brought it to its knees.

Long Islanders stood up to Sir Cecil and soundly rejected Tennyson, which led to the annihilation of the opposition in the general election and the rise of the Bahamian Democratic Party which, though defeated, surpassed the FNM to become the official opposition that year.

This was a direct result of Tennyson’s meddling and his messianic hold over the leader. Fast-forward 39 years and history is about to repeat itself. The forked-tongued prophet of doom was at it again.

The people of Long Island apparently still love Butler-Turner. They want to see her continue to represent them in parliament. Tennyson, of course, is plotting behind Minnis’ throne to replace her with someone else, most probably him.

The branch chairman called it for what it was, pure unabashed mischief making by Tennyson. No doubt grateful for Butler-Turner’s leadership after last year’s hurricane, the majority of the Long Island branch wants her to stay. That might just be good politics on their behalf. Having challenged the leader and then throwing her support behind him, their MP stands a good chance to be highly repaid by Minnis if he is asked to form the next government.

It was amusing to see that Tennyson, who abhors anonymity in letter writing, chose to keep those he says oppose Butler-Turner a big secret in his phony petition. Could the invisible signatories be figments of his imagination?

What was especially shameless about Tennyson’s muck-raking was his recourse to Donald Trump style birtherism. According to him, to qualify to run for Long Island you must be a native born Long Islander. That policy would have kept Sir Lynden Pindling out of Andros, and it should have kept Tennyson out of Bamboo Town years ago.

In a rare show of leadership Minnis gave Tennyson his comeuppance by publicly throwing his unqualified support behind Butler-Turner’s re-nomination. Chastened but unshamable, it remains to be seen if Tennyson sings the leader’s tune.

No doubt he is already plotting his next menacing move. Rest assured it is likely to be more farcical than this one.

THE GRADUATE

Nassau,

September 12, 2016.