The Tribune

IT is by-election day, and as you read this, voters in West Grand Bahama and Bimini are having their say on who will be their representative in Parliament.

Any by-election for a government mid-term is a litmus test, and this is no different.

There are five candidates in the field but realistically it will be between the FNM and PLP. That seems like a binary outcome but whatever the outcome is, people will read the tea leaves to see what it all means.

Who won, how much did they win by, what does the swing in votes one way or the other mean for the party in government or the party in opposition, and so on.

For the Coalition of Independents, there will be attention paid too, with party leader Lincoln Bain having put himself in the field. The previous candidate for the COI, Stefon Hall, got 192 votes. Mr Bain’s performance will show whether the COI is a genuine third contender or not, but he will have to shift the dial the direction of the COI considerably to play something more than the role of a spoiler for whichever party his campaign draws votes from.

Then there are the other independents, with DaQuan Swain running for the second time after getting 73 votes in 2021, and Terneille Burrows, a well-known activist and previous candidate in the Elizabeth constituency, taking her campaign on the road.

A Tribune poll has been running on our website, offering its own insight into who people think will win – but for now, the most important thing is letting the people of the constituency itself have their say.

The analysis? That will come. Whichever leading candidate loses, there will be questions about whether this revelation or that on the campaign trail was the telling moment.

Meanwhile, the constituency itself has had a whirlwind of attention, including deals for roadworks, a new MSC agreement, promises here, promises there – with many wondering how much of this would have come the constituency’s way if it were not having a by-election right now.

The Cabinet met for the first time ever in Eight Mile Rock yesterday – but perhaps the more pertinent thought is when will they ever meet again there?

We hope voters have had the chance to understand the pros and cons of each candidate, to be able to make an informed choice.

There are questions that remained unexplored – perhaps one of the most interesting would be the candidates’ thoughts on marital rape laws, a discussion the PLP had during its recent convention but whose outcome has not been announced either.

In truth, whoever wins, the government majority will not be significantly altered one way or the other. The PLP will still have the lion’s share of Parliament, and will have no trouble putting its agenda through given the size of their majority.

But this vote may well give an indication of how firm support for the incumbent party remains – and that will be well worth considering as we start to turn towards the next general election.

For now, though, let the people vote.

Failed monitoring

A short court story today raises an eyebrow.

The man accused of making death threats to the Prime Minister was accused of bail violations. It’s not an uncommon story to see in the courts – an accused person coming to court and police saying they failed to charge their monitoring device. In this case, the man was found innocent of the bail violations (the death threat case still has to be heard). Why? Well, he said he told the security company that handles the monitors that his was not working. Police insisted the man was at fault – but the security company confirmed he had called them, and the judge said that was enough of that and rejected the charges.

But let us consider for a moment – this was a man accused of threatening to kill the Prime Minister. Repeat that – threatening to kill the Prime Minister. One would think that someone who was accused of making such a threat would not fall through the cracks of the bail monitoring system. Surely if you’re going to make sure you keep track of anyone, it is the man being accused of threatening to assassinate the head of the government.

If the system cannot keep track of someone accused of that, then is anyone really being monitored properly? We dread to think.