The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

The November 16, 2015 edition of National Review gave a thumbnail, supercilious assessment of FNM Leader Dr Hubert Minnis by stating that he is uninspiring, ineffectual, and that he lacks the capability of uniting a team around him.

Additionally, the author of National Review ominously opined in that ‘‘we often shudder to imagine the kind of country we would have under him (Minnis).”

If words have meaning, then National Review would seem to be positing the idea that Minnis as prime minister would be an unmitigated disaster for The Bahamas, even more so than the stewardship of both Sir Lynden Pindling and current prime minister, Perry Christie.

Under Pindling, the country’s democratic growth was stymied by a jittery political directorate. This was during the era that saw the 1984 Commission of Inquiry as well as the embarrassing 1982 “The Bahamas: A Nation For Sale” report by American journalist Brian Ross.

When the FNM under Hubert Ingraham came to high office in August 1992, the party met in place a nation whose development was conspicuously retarded. 

Under Christie, there have been a barrage of allegations of scandals due in large to his shilly-shally approach to leadership between 2002-2007 and from 2012 to the present. If my assumptions are correct, then I refuse to believe that National Review believes its own hyperbole concerning the prospects of having Minnis as prime minister.

Having said all that, The Nassau Guardian is a private publication which is neither owned or funded by the FNM. Consequently, National Review is entitled to its opinion, however condescending it may be towards Minnis.

However, objective-minded FNMs must be deeply disturbed by Montagu MP Richard Lightbourn taking subtle swipes at Minnis in National Review on more than one occasion. Some FNMs view him as a troublemaker.

Lightbourn seems to be in the corner of Long Island MP Loretta Butler-Turner, whose prime ministerial ambitions are no secret.

Standing in the way of her goal is Hubert A Minnis. As a Bahamian voter who supports the FNM, I have no scruples about Butler-Turner wanting to become FNM leader and subsequently prime minister. What I am against, however, is the methods her group, allegedly at her behest or at the very least her approval, is utilising to accomplish its goals.

Lightbourn and the anonymous members of the Butler-Turner faction within the FNM have undertaken a far more aggressive campaign against Minnis than they have against the PLP.

It is these folks hiding behind pseudonyms as they unremittingly pen letters to The Tribune and Nassau Guardian ranting about Minnis’ political inadequacies. Lightbourn and Co. would be hard-pressed to find any current dyed-in-the-wool PLPs in Parliament aiding and abetting their political rivals by excoriating Prime Minister Perry Christie in a public forum, with the exception of Tall Pines PLP MP Leslie Miller and recusants and former PLPs Gregory Moss (Marco City), Renward Wells (Bamboo Town) and Dr Andre Rollins (Fort Charlotte).

Those PLP MPs who are unhappy with Christie as leader would murmur in private rather than air the PLP’s dirty laundry in public. For what it’s worth, Lightbourn has at least been the face of the anti-Minnis camp, and is in all likelihood become its de factor spokesperson. He isn’t a coward like the few FNMs who have launched a litany of complaints in the press about Minnis under false monikers.

I agree with Lightbourn that the FNM should hold a convention. All of the executive posts within the FNM should be challenged. I am in full agreement with the anti-Minnis faction in this regard.

Where we part ways, however, is the camp’s predilection for persistently undermining the FNM leader in public in order to achieve its objectives.

In the event this group accomplishes its goal, I hope Butler-Turner never goes through the hell her group has subjected Minnis to.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport, GB

January 24, 2016.