The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

My co-worker recently told me that his former girlfriend and adult daughter are both rabid supporters of the Progressive Liberal Party. They have always been PLPs. As the old saying goes, it’s in their DNA.

Interestingly, both of them worked in the urban renewal programme under the Free National Movement government. They were not fired or victimised when the FNM took office in 2007.

The FNM was heavily criticised for watering down the programme, hence causing it to lose its effectiveness in positively transforming the urban areas of New Providence and Grand Bahama. In fairness to the PLP, this might be a valid criticism.

The programme was not as effective under the FNM as it is under the PLP. This is not to say that I am giving it a two thumbs up for its overall results since May 7.

Despite what its advocates are saying, crime is still high.

And at least urban renewal workers under the FNM were paid on a timely basis. True, under the FNM police officers were removed from urban renewal centres and placed back on the streets to combat crime. But, that is what they are paid to do. The FNM was still criticised for its decision.

Anyway, the two PLP women mentioned above were not allowed to continue working in the programme when the PLP took office in May. Their contracts were not renewed.

I think what had happened is that because both were working in the programme under the FNM, PLP officials thought that they were FNMs. You see, they are just rank-and-file supporters of the PLP. None of the leaders of that party don’t even know if the two ladies exist and have voted for their party all their lives. Yet the two were hung out to dry with scores of FNM supporters who also worked in the programme.

When I asked my co-worker about the current political mood of the two PLPs, he said that both of them wish elections were held today. They would vote FNM without hesitation.

He said that they are regretting their decision to vote PLP.

Even though the two were eager to get rid of the dreaded FNM, they now see that they were treated far more fairly under the very party they hated.

If the PLP could treat its own like trash, what would it do to its political opponents? The FNM knew that they were PLPs because they wore their politics on their sleeve. Yet they kept them on the job because they are Bahamians who have a right to earn a living like everybody else.

Only seven months into its administration and even PLPs are now fed up with their own party. While PM Perry Christie continues to find high paying consultancy jobs for senior PLPs, young rank-and-file PLPs, like the two young ladies, have been left behind by the Gold Rush train.

They are disillusioned because they feel as if they have been used by the PLP party.

The only ones getting the spoils are prominent PLPs. I submit that if elections were held today, the PLP would be clobbered at the polls.

THE WHISTLEBLOWER

December, 2012.