The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

AS he urged party supporters to roll up their sleeves and begin making necessary adjustments to the party, Bradley Roberts said at the Progressive Liberal Party’s National General Council meeting last night that last week’s general election results were a “bitter disappointment” for PLP supporters.

“The desire for change was great and the Bahamian people expressed their free will,” Mr Roberts said nearly a week after the political party suffered its greatest electoral defeat, winning only four seat of the 39 House of Assembly seats.

As some have called for the party to completely revamp itself in the wake of its landslide defeat, Mr Roberts suggested this won’t be necessary, citing the party’s 1997 experience when, under the leadership of former Prime Minister Lynden Pindling, the party won only six seats in that year’s election.

“I remember well the party’s loss at the polls in 1997 when only a handful of PLPs were elected and there was a call from FNM supporters for the PLP to change its name and to rebrand its image,” Mr Roberts said. “PLP MPs and senators ignored the naysayers but aggressively engaged the FNM inside and outside of Parliament and five years later the Bahamian people re-elected the PLP to government in very strong numbers in 2002. I vividly recall as the then MP for Grants Town on many occasions standing to my feet to speak in Parliament only to find one or two FNM members present.”

Mr Roberts said “now is not the time for finger pointing, for making excuses and for over-analysis.”

The PLP chairman said he fears newly-elected Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis will face many of the difficulties as the country’s leader that he faced as leader of the Official Opposition, a tenure that was plagued by infighting and challenges to his leadership.

After the FNM ran a campaign that cast doubt on how value added tax (VAT) was spent, Mr Roberts said Dr Minnis’ “painful obligation” will be to truthfully admit that all VAT revenue was deposited into the Public Treasury and that all of it is accounted for.

Mr Roberts also suggested that the FNM is already changing its tune on Baha Mar.

“Newly appointed Attorney General Carl Bethel told the media at his swearing in ceremony that the FNM government is only interested in the truth surrounding that agreement,” he noted.

“He, on behalf of the FNM finally admitted that it was in fact the Supreme Court that sealed the sales agreement and not Christie as they repeatedly told the Bahamian people before and during their campaign.

“There is a world of difference between the irresponsible, casual and loose handling of the facts in opposition politics compared to the discipline, responsibility and accountability of governance. A government cannot be casual and loose with the facts.”

Mr Roberts called on the FNM to compare the concessions offered under the PLP government to concessions offered under the FNM with respect to Baha Mar.

“For once, the FNM should allow the Bahamian people the benefit of unfiltered empirical data from which to draw their conclusions,” he said.

Mr Roberts thanked former Prime Minister Perry Christie for his service to the country last night, saying: “History will be kind to Mr Christie and record that notwithstanding a protracted global economic recovery, over 33,000 jobs were added to The Bahamas economy in the last five years – the most in any five year term in office.”