The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

WITH much of the nation in shock after Prime Minister Perry Christie flashed an obscene hand gesture on Monday night, Free National Movement Leader Dr Hubert Minnis yesterday said it was past time for the nation’s leader to “get the hell out” and resign.

Dr Minnis also demanded an apology from Mr Christie after he extended his middle finger - an action known colloquially as ‘flipping the bird’ - during a Progressive Liberal Party community meeting Monday night in Fox Hill.

Dr Minnis also said the Prime Minister’s behaviour was “foul and has no place in the public domain”, adding that Mr Christie had become “unhinged”.

“I, along with all right-thinking Bahamians, was shocked and horrified by the public embarrassment displayed by our Prime Minister,” Dr Minnis said at FNM headquarters.

“This behaviour, to my knowledge, is the first and hopefully the last time a sitting Prime Minister of our God-fearing nation, (will) publicly curse at Bahamians by using such profane gestures.

“And our Prime Minister must know that regardless to where he is, he represents the Bahamas and should behave accordingly,” Dr Minnis said.

In the process of discrediting many of his detractors on Monday night, Mr Christie claimed that as an election nears, his adversaries would do whatever it takes to destroy him in their “hunger for power”.

Addressing one specific instance of these “lies and distortions”, Mr Christie said he woke on Monday to allegations of him owning a condominium as a result of political impropriety. The claim was made in a video posted to Facebook.

“When I was getting up this morning, they showed me an account of a lunatic who was saying I should deny I own this condominium.

“This is what I (told) him,” Mr Christie said, before he briefly stuck up his middle finger to gasps, shock and laughter from those gathered.

Dr Minnis told reporters yesterday that this action demonstrated that Mr Christie is no longer “fit” to sit as Prime Minister of the Bahamas.

The Killarney MP said it has become clear that Mr Christie’s “arrogance has no limits”.

“His behaviour is that of someone who has become unhinged and extremely unstable, and our country needs strong moral leadership. Our international reputation is now at stake. And I (would add) that our national reputation was already being tarnished by this Prime Minister and this PLP government.

“I call on all Bahamians, religious leaders, civic organisations, the Christian Council, to condemn the Prime Minister and ask for an immediate apology.

“I call on the Prime Minister to do the honourable thing and resign and in the absence of doing this, he should call an immediate election so that we, the Bahamian people, can fire him,” Dr Minnis said.

Watch the video of Mr Christie’s gesture at tribune242.com

Defense

Mr Christie did defend his action shortly after it occurred, insisting that his political development followed the trajectory of a generation of politicians who witnessed very personal and vile attacks for much of their public lives.

As a result, he said, he was now weary and fed up with the baseless claims that did nothing except sell newspapers and tabloids.

He said on Monday: “Let me just tell y’all something . . . there is no possibility of my having weak knees in the face of the grossest lies. I worked from the basis that in my lifetime, I heard people say (former Prime Minister) Sir Lynden Pindling’s mother was not his mother.

“Where a man who is credited as being the architect of the modern Bahamas, had to go and secure affidavits to prove, ‘my mother is my mother.’

“You talking about lies and distortion? Well get used to it because they (the detractors and opposition) have no capacity to govern.”

Mr Christie, to resounding applause added: “They cannot govern. They have demonstrated a lack of ability to work together. They have no vision. All the evidence we have tells us they are a failure and we must be able to say it easily.”

Christie vs Minnis

While much of the focus following Monday’s function has been placed on Mr Christie’s action, many of his comments were directed at Dr Minnis concerning the former Official Opposition leader’s inability to command his party for much of the past five years.

The Centreville MP did not mince words, contending that Bahamians should not hand over the reigns of the country to a party as unstable and dysfunctional as the FNM.

In response, Dr Minnis said his leadership should not be viewed as an “issue”, warning voters not to allow Mr Christie to distract them from the true problems facing the country.

Dr Minnis said on the sidelines of his press conference: “The prime minister is in election mode, I am not the issue. The issue is his bad governance, his poor leadership, the economy of this country, the crime, the amount of people that are dying, the unemployment; those are the issues that face the nation today.

“Our downgrading and the reputation of this country that is being disturbed and lost. Those are the issues, I am not the issue.

“When you ask people what problems they face, the problems they face are the blackouts, lack of transparency, the victimisation, the corruption; let him talk about those.

“Those are the issues that face the Bahamian people and face the nation; not me, so tell the prime minister to get his act together, inform the nation what he has done and how he has destroyed and continues to destroy this nation and do the honourable thing and get the hell out and resign.”