The Tribune

FOREIGN AFFAIRS and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell and Prime Minister Perry Christie both emphasised the importance of respecting the Office of Prime Minister at a Fox Hill Day celebration on Monday.

We fully agree with the importance of this statement. However, we question whether Mr Mitchell is the one to carry the message to the children of his constituency, especially those who believe that the preacher must lead by example.

The prime minister’s office is in fact a very important office in the land, but as a letter writer on this page has pointed out, contrary to what Mr Mitchell has said, it is not the “most important executive office in this country in that he (the Prime Minister) is the defender of all the power and majesty that is reposed in the Bahamian state.”

In fact Mr Mitchell was describing the position of the Governor General, representative of HM the Queen, our constitutional Head of State, who is the one in fact who “represents the power and majesty of the state.”

“No one should disrespect the prime minister,” Mr Mitchell continued. “You would notice that when the prime minister enters the room, we all stand, there is only one office for which that honour is afforded and as a matter of protocol to the governor general.”

This statement is almost laughable, as our letter writer points out. One stands for the governor-general as the representative of the Queen. It is just good manners to also stand for the prime minister.

“All the little boys and girls in the country one day want to aspire to that office,” Mr Mitchell told his Fox Hill listeners on Monday. “So we can’t allow anyone to denigrate it. And anyone who does should be called out. That’s just the way it is.”

Sixteen years ago Mr Mitchell himself was given the same advice by Youth for Christ Leader Rev Stunce Williams. He too was called out. With the Bahamas Constitution in hand and under the same fig tree that on the previous day Mr Mitchell had burned the same document and sent its ashes to Prime Minister Pindling, the Reverend gentleman warned the young firebrand:

“I am afraid that if you lead young people into burning a flag and burning a Constitution, if you are not careful those same young people one day will burn a country.

“I want to say to Mr Mitchell that if one day he did become the prime minister of this country, I am afraid that burning a copy of the Constitution may one day come out of the grave to haunt him.”

The reverend had much to say, acknowledging that he had read Mr Mitchell’s press statement that one of his ambitions was to become prime minister of this country.

However, he added:

“We know that all dictators that have ruled a country one of the first things they did was to abandon the constitution. When you do away with the constitution of a country you are simply sending a negative signal to me that you want an opportunity to do as you like.”

In August 1992, Mr Mitchell launched a full scale challenge to the Pindling government’s election broadcast laws when his first political advertisement was broadcast from a Florida radio station. He had hoped to provoke his arrest when he challenged the law on the basis that it was unconstitutional.

“This law is a treacherous law by Pindling, and no political joker is going to take away our right to free speech,” Mr Mitchell challenged the prime minister from Miami.

After the findings of the 1984 Commission of Inquiry, Mr Mitchell believed that Prime Minister Pindling and his cabinet should either resign, or call an election.

“But no,” he said, “we like the wealth and the power so we stay on, and on, and on, and we don’t know when to quit.

“This is what happened in the PLP,” he said.

On another occasion, in January 1992, he was critical of PLP leaders for turning the opening of the new CR Walker High School into a political forum to praise themselves.

Mr Mitchell said that his party – the PDF – believed that the actions of the PLP “from Pindling on down” at the opening of the new school were “crass, vulgar and raw displays of political partisanship.”

In a press statement he said it was “truly a disgrace when the leaders of a country do not know the difference between a national occasion and a political occasion. The wrong is even greater when one considers that the Prime Minister has been running this country for 25 years.”

On another occasion – this time in 1989 — critical of the country’s business being unattended by the Pindling government, he declared: “I am prepared to run that risk and other greater risks. I am determined that this country is going to have a Supreme Court and Magistracy that it can be proud of. Just as I was not afraid to run Paul Adderley, out of the Office of Attorney-General, I am prepared to do whatever I can to bring about other changes.”

In those days Mr Mitchell was a busy political activist.

He believed in his press releases and he studied deadlines and circulation days to make certain that they always got the best press exposure. What we have quoted here are just a few samples from his many long statements.

Although we believe that the office of prime minister should be respected, we also believe that the holder of that office should set the example to the best of his ability by doing nothing that would attract disrespect.

Mr Mitchell went through a period when he felt that Sir Lynden did not deserve the respect of his office and as often as he could, he bluntly told him so.

But on Fox Hill Day, Mr Mitchell was singing another tune, and Prime Minister Christie, as one would expect, liked the sound of it.

“He is right in that regard,” said Mr Christie, “when he speaks about the respect for the Office of the Prime Minister, sometimes we forget it is not the individual we are talking about, we are talking about the office that person holds.”

However, the holder of that office also has to speak in measured tones if he doesn’t want to spark a thunderstorm.

Prime Minister Christie over reacted by calling into question Baha Mar’s CEO Sarkis Izmirlian’s state of mind when his company issued a press release criticising government for not paying Baha Mar staff on time when it had promised to do so. Baha Mar had the payroll ready, but government prevented them from paying their own staff, saying that it had taken over the payroll. Complaining about the inconvenience caused the staff, the company said:

“It is unconscionable and disappointing that Baha Mar should be forced to divert time and resources away from the critical task of completing construction and opening Baha Mar successfully as a result of the Government concocting a sideshow for its own purposes. One truly has to wonder why the Government is not fully supporting the one investor - the project’s developer - which, along with the people of The Bahamas, have been victimized by the repeated failures of the general contractor to complete construction on schedule and as promised. The Government’s behaviour, simply put, has sown confusion and doubt about the future of Baha Mar.”

We wonder what Mr Mitchell’s acid tongue would have said had he been in Mr Izmirlian’s position?

However, the Prime Minister’s reply to the Baha Mar statement was to question the state of Mr Izmirlian’s mind — “the company’s leadership appears to be going to pieces under the mounting pressure,” he said.

This disrespect set off Mitchell and Shane Gibson. One threatened to put Mr Izmirlin out of the country, the other threatened psychological testing for all future investors. Complete madness.

Remember: “Respect works both ways, if you expect to receive it, you should ensure that you also give it.”