The Tribune

By MALCOLM STRACHAN

IN times of crisis, the mettle of true leaders is put to the test. Winston Churchill, known for his refusal to surrender to Germany in World War II, Nelson Mandela’s leadership and negotiations that led to the end of Apartheid, George W Bush navigating the US through the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and his successor, Barack Obama, steering the country during the 2008 recession – all names synonymous with incredibly trying times throughout history. And now, with COVID-19 affecting the whole world, leaders have had to dig deep.

North of us, America is in total chaos. With cases increasing at an astronomical clip and with a President seemingly on a kamikaze mission to leave his successor an epic mess to disentangle, it is quite ironic the US now fits the description of one of the countries Trump so eloquently described a few years ago.

Though he may have lost the presidency in the electoral college by a margin he referred to as a landslide when he bested Hillary Clinton in 2016, most commentators view this as a decision by the American electorate to vote him out rather than elect Biden in.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Despite the seeds of discord he’s repeatedly sown in American society during a time when racial tensions have been as high as during the Civil Rights Movement, at many points throughout election night, many people thought it was a very real possibility for President Trump to secure another term in the White House.

Many other things have been easier to grasp. The world superpower - a country with such proud citizens - when looking at its leadership options were more certain about where they did not want to return to than where they want to actually go. Anywhere, anything, is better than the past four years, I suppose. But nonetheless, it is a dangerous place for a citizenry to be. Who knows this better than we do?

Every five years, we experiment with the governance of our country – allowing one group to come in for a five-year test drive before the other guys have another opportunity. Rinse and repeat.

But as we would have hopefully learned through our most difficult lesson yet, without visionary leadership, the cost of this merry-go-round is very burdensome on our people.

Without a vision, we are on a directionless course.

A vision places a marker down, pinpointing somewhere in the future, allowing leaders to reverse engineer a strategy of getting us there.

In the last two administrations, on one hand, the former Prime Minister Perry Christie won on the mantra, “Believe in Bahamians”. Taking a similar tone five years later, the Free National Movement told us it was “the people’s time”. However, as both slogans were just as about as ambiguous as the other, the Bahamian people never got a true sense of where we were going to be led, or how we were going to get there, we are where we are.

Although murders are down significantly - entirely due to the population being locked in doors every night for most of the year - the level of hostility due to the misery index is through the roof. Our population is growing more individualistic at a time we need each other most, and the brain drain is alive and well as many Bahamians living abroad scoff at the idea of returning home.

Unquestionably, all signs point to the need for the next government to have a vision, but even more importantly, the will to lead the country there even when the electorate doesn’t do its job in keeping them accountable. Notwithstanding the extraordinary difficulties the current administration has had to grapple with in a short space of time, when leaders are guided by a vision, they are better prepared to handle crises head on.

The country desperately needs this kind of leadership – not just in the role of Prime Minister, but throughout Cabinet and on both sides of the political divide in Parliament. Culturally, we need to evolve from this iteration of Bahamian politics, else we will be hard-pressed to survive the changing landscape that is upon us. No longer can we depend solely on tourism and the debunked notion that if the resorts are open the tourists will come.

Leaders are going to have to become more creative, innovative and strategic.

On campaign trails leading up to election, political aspirants are no strangers to vainly promising to implement the policies they think will deliver a victory. Without a firm commitment to what’s laid out in manifestos or first 100-day proclamations, successive administrations have lacked the foundation needed to inspire confidence in the populace at a time when it’s needed most.

Visionary leadership surveys the global landscape, imagines the implications of a multitude of situations and comes up with ways to safeguard against or take advantage of them. If we have learned anything, we know that this must be a prerequisite to governing this country.