EDITOR, The Tribune.
East Grand Bahama MP Peter Turnquest’s election as FNM deputy leader at the party’s recent one day convention appears to have raised a few eyebrows within the anti-Minnis faction of the FNM.
Turnquest officially announced to the Press that he would run for the post on November 19 – a mere two days before the convention. Yet despite jumping into the deputy leadership race at such a late stage, Turnquest bested his closest challenger, Dr Duane Sands, by 62 votes. One of the newspapers reported that Turnquest got 215 votes; Sands 153 votes and Darron Cash 19 votes. Both Cash and Sands are more nationally recognised than Turnquest. Both have been in active politics before Turnquest. And both had thrown their hats into the FNM deputy leadership race before Turnquest.
Despite these seeming advantages, however, both were easily dispatched by Turnquest, the FNM’s shadow finance minister. What is most shocking about the results of the deputy leadership race is that Cash, the former FNM chairman, was only able to muster up a paltry 19 votes.
Turnquest defeated Cash by a mind boggling 196 votes.
One simply cannot reiterate this point enough. The FNM delegates spoke loud and clear at the convention that they are happy with Dr Hubert Minnis as leader, despite all the noise in the market. Some FNMs, who are obviously unhappy with the re-election of Minnis as leader, are now making the asinine claim in the newspapers that nobody knows who Turnquest is; therefore he was not the best choice for FNM deputy leader. This is borderline ignorance.
Every adult Bahamian living in The Bahamas should at the very least have minimal knowledge of each of the 38 MPs. Turnquest has been an MP for nearly three years now. The claim that no Bahamian knows who the East Grand Bahama MP is may have been a hyperbole.
Yet try as one might, you still cannot get around the fact that it was an asinine statement and this seeming ignorance says more about the persons who are making this claim than it does of Turnquest. Those FNMs who are claiming ignorance of Turnquest either don’t keep abreast of political news in The Bahamas or they just lying through their teeth.
KEVIN EVANS
Freeport,
Grand Bahama,
December 1, 2014.
Comments
duppyVAT 9 years, 4 months ago
Peter Turnquest is a first term MP ........... Obama was a first term Senator ............ And??????
afficianado 9 years, 4 months ago
I didn't know who Peter Turnquest was and when I saw that he won the deputy leader post I said in my " The Color Purple" voice, "Harpo. who dis person?" I read the tribune newspaper online everyday since I'm currently a student in the U.S. and I'm accustom to seeing Darron Cash and Duane Sands but rarely Peter Turnquest. He's gonna have to become speak up if he wants to win some "young" votes.
ThisIsOurs 9 years, 4 months ago
I don't know who Peter Turnquest is either, because we don't have a process in place to let the general public know which of the political candidates are jokers, serious, swindlers, statesmen or theives. There is nothing. All we have to judge them on is a prepared speech, ability to tell jokes, how they look in a suit or whether they look smart in their glasses. Oh and ability to dance to Junkanoo. This is not aimed at Mr Turnquest, it's about the non existent vetting process for the man we hand our life savings over to ever 5 years and beg him to please take care of that, cause that's my laaasst dollar. That's all I have to feed my children with. You look like a good man. Here's my purse
Looks is the downfall of this country
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