The Tribune

By NICOLE BURROWS

DEPUTY Prime Minister Davis said the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) will win 30 seats in the upcoming general election.

I say that must be straight from his Cat Island obeah man. If the PLP gets 10 seats it will be too many ... 30 would be scandalous and would reek of vote buying and more corruption (or a really, really foolish electorate).

Then, when announcing the date of the next general election, Prime Minister Perry Christie said:

“Let us by our CONDUCT in the general election campaign continue to prove ourselves worthy of the great democratic traditions of free, FAIR, and peaceful elections that have made our country the marvel of nations around the world. Let us contest the forthcoming elections with all the vigour at our command. Let us do so however with the respect for the human DIGNITY of our opponents and with respect for the traditions we all hold dear.”

Traditions like vote buying, I can only assume. Because no sooner had he said these words did I overhear a conversation about agents of the PLP – with close ties to the Prime Minister – visiting homes in the Centreville constituency, asking what constituents wanted done for them in exchange for their votes.

Yes, I overheard it. And because of that some people would dismiss it as hearsay. But I can only tell exactly what I heard. The person saying it had no reason to lie about what was said and conveyed it to someone trusted believing there was no one else around to hear it.

People always want you to “bring the facts” in the face of corruption, but no one - including those asking for the facts, evidence, proof - ever has enough character to give the facts. Their character is smothered by their eternal fear of others knowing they too are on the take, or their eternal fear of knowing how much they stand to lose by not being on the take, or being removed from it.

Politics and the way our people operate around it in The Bahamas is sickening. People in public service live so desperately under the casually and habitually corrupt that they are only concerned with making sure they can pay off their house debt and collect pension once vested.

Journalists who work for the propaganda news company act the same way as the public servants. And other journalists who may actually believe in the morality of what they do, and may be willing to provide all the facts, are represented by private companies that get advertising dollars from political parties and the people who operate those parties. None of those companies want to lose their advertising revenue, so they will only ever say so much, even if they have evidence in hand.

If everyone from civil servants to journalists are afraid of reprisal, backlash, losing contracts and business, why do any of you go to the polls every five years? If you cared that much about who runs your country, each one of you with information on vote buying and other such wicked political activities would have given the facts and the proof of the same to the people who aren’t afraid of reprisal. But it isn’t until you become victims of such activities do you cry out against them.

We depend on foreigners for everything else we need; maybe it’s only them we can depend on now to knock some sense into our system, one way or another. But even they are on the take, to the extent that they get their big investment projects approved by the government, to the extent that they get incredulous tax concessions, and to the extent that they get to operate their businesses, no matter how suspect, outside of the light of government scrutiny.

So, unless you Bahamian people plan to change the government on May 10, from any we’ve ever had before, namely PLP and Free National Movement (FNM) administrations, then all you’re doing is voting for the exact same cycles to repeat themselves ... the sustenance of a system that works the same old way it used to, people afraid to speak out against the establishment when it operates corruptly, with every one of you having a price tag for your silence.

If we can’t even get justice for victims of murder years after their violent and unnecessary deaths, what makes you think that by operating under a PLP or FNM government you’ll get justice against corrupt politicians and all who suck on them?

Where are the observers who are supposed to watch the general election? They need to get to Nassau before the actual election. They need to be in place already, so they can follow the money bags.

Barely a day after making those declarations about our pending elections and our wonderful democracy, Christie stood on Windsor Park, giving another sermon filled with artifice, while it was being alleged that free ‘groceries’ were conveniently being issued to Centreville constituents, less than a month before the election. Are we to believe that the timing of this event was mere coincidence? Who among you can’t see that this too would be considered vote buying? Who among you cares?

Just two days after I overheard that conversation about his people in Centreville allegedly buying votes for him, Christie also said:

“I don’t need to play politics to win Centreville. Everybody in here must know that. And everybody knows I have won it for eight consecutive elections over 40 years.”

Yes. And now we have a better idea how he did/does it.

He went on, nauseatingly, “God is able and God is good. At the end of the day, I have to have the faith that God is good, God is able and God will always be present. I have to believe that. And I have to believe that he will work through all of you.”

There he goes, classic leader of a third world country, exercising psychological manipulation of the hyper-religious people. In other words, Christie is saying ‘if you believe in God, you’ll believe in and vote for me’.

PLP’s free electricity

First of all, if electricity could be free under our current system of generating and selling power, the only two groups who should benefit from that are the low-pensioned elderly, and the low-pensioned infirmed.

That said, there is no such thing as ‘free’. Somebody pays sometime, somewhere. Subsidies cost money to someone. Government subsidies cost money to someone ... usually all others who are not subsidised.

Furthermore, if electricity could have been free, dear PLP, why didn’t you make this offer before now, one month from Election Day 2017? Your gangsterism is appalling.

The PLP, whether they even believe their own spin or not, says the objective of providing free electricity is to make Bahamians more disciplined in their use of electricity. Well, let me shower you with reality: ‘free’ and ‘discipline’ don’t go together in The Bahamas. When last did you see anything ‘free’ in The Bahamas lead to more disciplined Bahamians? All ‘free’ leads to is abuse of the system, wherever it exists.

And frankly, if the PLP had real conviction or sense of purpose, the closest thing to ‘free’ electricity would be to take the Bahamian people’s financial resources and invest in solar and wind renewable energies, instead of investing it in FOCOL.

Does any of this sound familiar? This year, the PLP government on the campaign trail promises free electricity to poor and working class Bahamians to get votes just before a general election, while living in the back pockets of oil suppliers. Last year, the Trump campaign promises American coal miners will keep their jobs (in an expiring industry where technology replaces manual labour) just before a general election, while living in the back pockets of coal-powered power plants and energy suppliers.

This modus operandi is distinctly common with people of no substance who have nothing of substance to offer in leadership.

PLP’s rent-to-own

housing plan

Minus the lump sum payment, it’s the same as mortgage. And if, now, in the current mortgage debt market, you take on a 30-year debt and still have to come out of pocket for $10,000 to $20,000 as a down payment, what term length could there possibly be on a rent-to-own in The Bahamas that would make such a scheme viable?

The only things that change in that mortgage equation are the term/life of the loan, the down payment, and the interest rate/monthly payment amount. With less money upfront as a down payment, one of those other things - term or interest rate/monthly payment amount - will have to change upward. People supposedly renting to own will either be paying more over time or paying longer. Alternatively, all it will amount to is another government-subsidised programme, where other Bahamians are paying for those who can’t afford to buy houses in the first place, while filling the pockets of another Arawak Homes-type company. And producing substandard pre-fab homes in a hurricane zone won’t suffice to cut costs on such a programme; if you challenge that notion, call Joaquin and Matthew back and let them refresh your memory.

All this rent-to-own plan is, whether presented by the PLP or the FNM crying that it was their idea first, is just more hot air being blown up your Bahamian backsides. Instead of coming up with these ridiculous plans, your government or your would-like-to-be government, should be focused on plans for growing the economy, so that more people can have more opportunities that pay them more over a longer period of time. That is where the bulk of your government’s efforts should be directed right now ... the economy... plus crime control and education. All else follows.

• You can watch and listen to Nicole Burrows talking through this article and other thoughts on fb.me/PolitiColeTV. Comments and responses to nburrows@tribunemedia.net