The Tribune

At the 2012 and 2017 general elections, certain excitable radio personalities and a certain pundit, breezily and erroneously opined that the Progressive Liberal Party and the Free National Movement were offering few to no policy ideas in their respective election manifestos.

Few of these opinion-makers had apparently taken the time to review the policy prescriptions of the major parties, preferring instead to employ the usual cliché that the parties were mostly just exchanging political barbs.

This column noted in 2017: “Before the last election [a certain academic] engaged in the sort of hyperbolic irresponsibility one might expect from someone woefully uninformed. She noted that she heard nothing about policy at political rallies.

“She was dead wrong. Both Hubert Ingraham and Perry Christie offered policy and programmatic ideas in a variety of areas.” Indeed, Mr Ingraham, a policy wonk who was meticulous and careful in drafting his party’s manifestos, often spoke at length on policy matters during rallies.

Ingraham would offer details on crime and national security, fiscal and economic affairs, Family Island development, health care and a broad and substantive range of policies. He had already privately costed these programmes and projects, a number of which he knew that he would have to roll-out over a period of time.

Before the Ingraham years and during his leadership of the party, the FNM was known for offering specific and comprehensive policies and programmes. The party has a legacy of producing manifestos rich with progressive ideas.

It was an early FNM that first proposed a version of National Health Insurance in the 1970s. The party decided health insurance should have been rolled-out before national insurance.

In and out of election season, Ingraham and his policy advisors were often dismayed at how ill-informed much of the media was about policies proposed and already in the public domain.

He sometimes sternly chastised reporters for asking questions the answers to which were previously debated publicly, including in the House of Assembly. At times, reporters asked questions about information already reported in the print and broadcast media, including in the journals for which they reported.

A former noted journalist recalls that in the 1950s and 60s, how he and other reporters took meticulous notes of House proceedings, dutifully reporting on debates in various newspapers.

While there may have been no golden age of journalism, to my mind there has been a downturn in standards from even just a decade or more ago.

The US-styled gotcha coverage in certain parts of the broadcast media is deplorable. Some programmes are FOX News-like shows more interested in shock journalism than providing genuine context and insight on the news.

During electoral contests in The Bahamas and overseas, some in the media mostly report on personalities and the barbed exchanges between leaders and candidates. It is often easier to report the combat of politics instead of detailing and analysing policies, which are less sexy and spectacular than the cut and thrust of campaigns.

During elections here at home and overseas, various commentators, including media pundits, often tut-tut and upbraid politicians for their political attacks, while gleefully reporting these attacks tabloid-style because they make for juicy copy.

On US cable news, media pundits often interview each other, reinforcing the sometimes hackneyed lines of the journalistic pack. This is typically one of the more boring segments in a broadcast, with little new insight or analysis.

The more informative, insightful and useful segments are when experts are interviewed on a given matter such as the recent withdrawal of troops from the United States from Afghanistan.

The ad nausea preoccupation on some political websites and broadcasts of how the withdrawal might affect President Joseph Biden politically became trite at some point, especially when a suicide attack on US troops and Afghans upended some of the commentary and opining.

Versions of the clichéd mindset of “why aren’t they talking more about policy in the general election” is again giddily bouncing around in some of the print, broadcast and social media in 2021.

Then there is the reliable false equivalence: “All of them are offering the same thing!” There is also this other lazed retort: “They’re offering nothing new”, even as new ideas are being suggested or there are updated and new versions of older ideas. The preoccupation with something “new” is often a fetishised cliché.

One might debate the ideas offered, their costs and other matters related to the promises made by political parties. One might also opine on the policies offered previously but which failed to materialise.

Still, commentators and editorial writers have an obligation to expound more fully on the policies offered by parties at election time and what they might mean for the country’s national development.

The PLP put out an election platform and held a virtual rally last week. Last Wednesday, the FNM put out a much longer and more comprehensive manifesto the same day that it announced a groundbreaking Universal School Meals programme, which was extolled in an editorial in The Tribune.

In every one of his rally speeches since the general election was called, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis has laid out various programmes, policies and projects, including specific ideas for the Family Islands he has visited.

The FNM’s Manifesto includes the party’s accomplishments over the past four-plus years and policies it intends to extend and complete in a new term.

It is also replete with proposed policies and projects in myriad areas including: post-COVID-19 strategies; jobs and investments; digitization; land ownership; tourism; the environment and renewable energy; infrastructure and the transformation of downtown Nassau.

Other areas include: youth development; agriculture and fisheries; culture, heritage and the arts; crime and security; judicial and legal reform; cannabis policy; education; health care; Over-the-Hill development; immigration and international affairs; labour and the public service; fiscal affairs and public administration; social development and disabilities; sports and local government.

Political campaigns are about comparisons. Sometimes the barbs and exchanges, though heated and vigorous, are warranted. Of course there are attacks that are beyond the pale, unnecessary and unwarranted, all of which should be decried.

But a certain cut and thrust is vital. When Barack Obama ran for President his rhetoric against those who supported the Iraq War was not polite and genteel. His political ads against Mitt Romney in a subsequent election were biting and stinging.

Context and perspective are critical, especially from commentators and journalists. The political exchanges in this election from the public rostrum are milder than most previous general election contests in The Bahamas.

The political and election wars between the PLP and the UBP, as well as those previously between the FNM and the PLP, make the speeches on the hustings during this campaign appear so much milder.

Sir Etienne Dupuch, a politician and journalist who was the editor of this journal for decades was ardent in his beliefs. He wielded a powerful political sword against his opponents in the House and during campaigns.

His powerful and clever pen, sometimes dipped in acid and sarcasm bested many opponents in defence of his ideas. Indeed, his editorials were set-pieces of political and journalistic battle.

He understood the need for the fierce debate of issues and values, and the role the Fourth Estate needed to play in informing the general public. To his great credit, if Sir Etienne roasted an opponent in The Tribune, which was previously printed in the evening, he would eagerly print a reply in the newspaper the following evening.

He understood the need for strong public debate, the thrust and parry of politics, the vigorous exchange of ideas as well as the need for the public and others to reply to the contents in his journal.