The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Whether in desperation or naiveté Dr. Hubert Minnis keeps befriending political failures. His latest bromance (aka fondness amongst kindred spirits) is none other than the Prince of Blabber, Leslie Miller, the loud-mouth PLP recently chased from his job as chairman of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation.

We all fondly remember the many nights we suffered through sweaty darkness, compliments of Miller and BEC. Fortunately, BEC no longer turns off our lights. That privilege has been delegated to Bahamas Power & Light.

If anyone needed further evidence to bring a bill of indictment against Minnis’ exceedingly poor political judgment they need look no further than his latest doozy. Some advance consultation with his colleagues might have averted this spectacle but Minnis has yet to acquire a nodding acquaintance with the indispensable element of collegiality which is at the centre of our system.

Minnis has become perhaps the first Opposition Leader to mount his party’s public podium to embrace a sitting government MP. In so doing Minnis revved the engine on the bus that he will probably use to roll over the unfortunate FNM candidate who stands against Miller in the general election. Even Perry Christie doesn’t have the dexterity to back two horses in the same race.

Miller is a blowhard who styles himself a potcake barking as loud as he can supposedly to protect the rights of the small man. But the small man knows enough to be very wary of any bullfrog dressed up in soldier’s clothes.

Remember the bad ole days when the small man lifted up one of their own to speak on their behalf and represent their interests in the halls of power? Nowadays it seems that self-appointed multi-millionaires are selling the small man salt pork inside a salt beef barrel.

Is the richest man in Parliament, Minnis, really intent to join forces with the deadbeat, light bill owing fellow multi-millionaire, Miller to throw a lifeline to poor people drowning in debt and left behind in Perry Christie’s stalled downgraded economy?

There is nothing wrong with millionaires making pots of money. That’s capitalism. Minnis would never understand this concept but progressive politics is about creating opportunities to lift struggling citizens out of poverty. To create a rising tide of economic growth to lift the rich man’s yacht and the poor man’s dinghy.

Minnis went trawling in PLP waters again. This time he caught a slippery bonefish. Some bonefish can be very tasty. Others can leave you promising on your children’s lives to become a vegetarian.

The jury is still out about Minnis’ latest catch, the ubiquitous Mr. Miller, who worked the crowd of red shirts on the night the incumbent FNM Leader launched his campaign to Junkanoo fanfare.

Instead of trying to convince FNM delegates that he would unite the party if they re-elect him, Minnis rubbed into their faces his belief that the FNM belonged exclusively to him to do with as he pleases. And it obviously pleases him to snatch another fish from Perry Christie and the PLP.

Never mind that these are fish that Christie kept in the hold on the leaking s/s PLP and he was relieved to be rid of. With minnows Andre Rollins and Renward Wells picked off by Minnis, it seems Miller, a natural predator, got lonely in that hold and went in search of new prey now that Christie has finally become weary of his bully antics.

Androsians know that a bonefish is so full of itself that it will launch an attack on a slow moving crab, and despite the implausibility of that meal, it will relentlessly pursue that hard shell crustacean.

Minnis is Miller’s “prey de jour” and so he crashed the FNM leader’s Roc concert to give a full-throated endorsement of Minnis as “the best man to lead the FNM.” Or was he invited by Minnis dem to “drop by for some fish and a cold beer”?

As M&M (Minnis and Miller) locked in a sweat-drenched embrace, Renward Wells gushed into the microphone that Miller was moving to “perhaps, his new home”. The doc-ers and doc-ettes swooned. FNMs reading about it later got dizzy too, but from nausea.

Miller brought his own brand of divisive politics, seeing in Minnis’ choice of venue, Christie Park in Bains Town, an example of his connection with grassroots voters. Miller cast aspersion on the choice by Loretta Butler-Turner to launch her campaign in venerable Rawson Square. It was lost on him that Rawson Square is the true public arena, the scene of most of the significant political and social movements in our history.

Or perhaps Miller has blocked from his mind that Rawson Square is the scene of one of his most egregious displays of misogyny. In the House of Assembly, looking down on the people’s square, he regaled members with a jokey tale of how he assaulted a woman sweetheart. The fact that he was dead serious at the time was not funny.

The same square where Butler-Turner’s grandfather, national hero Sir Milo Butler, helped orchestrate the hurling of the mace out the window of the House in defiance of minority rule. The majority, the theory went, were in Rawson Square. Touché Ms. Butler Turner!

Could it be that Christie danced a Junkanoo shuffle at Gambier House when he learned that Miller was now locked on Minnis? Sensing that the National General Council of the PLP were getting sick and tired of his disloyalty and hard mouth, is Miller sucking up to Minnis in the hopes of getting an FNM nomination?

And don’t think that is too far fetched to be credible. Minnis, the man who pledges to unite the party (something he hasn’t done in four years of not trying), is busy cooking up all sorts of schemes to purge long-standing FNMs and to separate sitting MPs from future nominations.

Why should Minnis listen to sage advise from battled-tested FNM old guards when he can bask in the thick fog created by yet another PLP mole willing to blow smoke up his chimney?

THE GRADUATE

Nassau,

July 24, 2016.