The Tribune

THE countdown to elections, 21 days away, is driving up the speed and lunacy of promises by the Progressive Liberal Party and threats from the Free National Movement.

The most recent promise of free electricity for 15 to 20 per cent of the nation’s poorest - if only those poorest would go to the polls and elect them - was a gratuitous attempt by a desperate PLP to win the hearts of the downtrodden.

The promise caught even the provider of such free electricity, Bahamas Power & Light, to issue a statement disavowing knowledge of any such arrangement. The threat from the FNM, equally eager to regain control of the government, was more muted. Re-elect the PLP, the opponents decried, and all you will get is more empty promises even as the country spirals downward with high unemployment, out-of-control crime, increasing moral decay, an education system that fails to deliver and a government that continues to make secret deals behind closed doors.

While the two major parties duel in a promise-and-threat campaign with little serious attention to policy, off to the side sits the Democratic National Alliance (DNA), the party that can determine the future of the country simply by its existence as it did once before, splitting a ‘we-demand-better’ vote. The DNA cannot and should not be ignored or overlooked. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your political leanings, the DNA is the only party that has tackled and published its plan for how it would deal with the issues, one problem at a time.

Its thorough 70-page manifesto called Vision 2017, released on April 11, does include promises - but promises of a different sort. It promises, for instance, a commission of inquiry with real muscle, the reinstatement of capital punishment and a $500 million economic stimulus package to spur domestic growth and confidence among local businesses, thus reducing the country’s near-total dependency of foreign direct investment and a fickle tourism-based economy.

The DNA’s platform makes so much sense that it also ignites that almost sick feeling in your gut that the rogue, but determined, third party will win just enough votes to spoil the FNM’s chance of regaining power, delivering the government right back into the hands of the PLP, which will see the victory as an unbridled moral mandate giving it the right to spend however it wants and do whatever it pleases without need for accountability or transparency or even responsibility.

The combination of two powerful parties engaged in a fencing match and a third party with good ideas and little chance of winning is a situation that is so grave for The Bahamas it almost defies description and merely invites fear for the future. There is no victory in sight for the country unless and until the FNM and the DNA find a way to mend fences and coalesce. It appears unlikely that such a miracle will occur before May 10.

In the meantime, we suggest that the two major parties take a lesson from the DNA manifesto and heed what others see so plainly and both the PLP and the FNM seem blind to - the utter predictability of failure that will eventually end in devaluation if we do not change our economic model. That model of tourism first, last and almost always with what is now a shrinking financial services industry, is 50 years old and sadly out of date. It once worked, but the world has moved on and The Bahamas has not moved with it. Yes, big hotels provide large numbers of jobs and cruise ships deliver large numbers without The Bahamas having to pay for advertising. But tourism cannot be the sole underpinning of a national economy.

One need look no further than Jamaica and its near-total dependence on bauxite. Once the second most promising economy in the region, behind only Trinidad and Tobago in GDP growth rate, it thrived as bauxite exports flourished. But when the market was flooded and the price of bauxite for aluminum production declined, it took the country down with it. The Jamaican dollar was devalued. The rates of poverty skyrocketed and in a country of haves and have-nots, the disparity grew exponentially.

Successive administrations, first Manley, then Seaga, could not cope. It took a private sector national effort led by Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, founder and still chairman of Sandals, to jumpstart the comeback. Involving the national media, civic and business leaders, Stewart created The Save-The-Dollar campaign, pledging to personally pump $1 million a week from Sandals into the coffers. A national energy exploded as others pledged money, driving the value up for investors. In six months, the Jamaican dollar began to climb and Stewart called the $25m he spent the best investment he ever made.

There are too many similarities between The Bahamas and Jamaica to avoid the comparable slide into devaluation.

Economies that are too dependent on a single industry accounting for more than half their revenue.

A Prime Minister, Perry Christie, like Manley in Jamaica, seeking his third term in a desire to be the longest reigning leader of the country and earn a hallowed place in history.

A once prosperous economy now troubled by high rates of unemployment, a high poverty rate (20 per cent in Jamaica, about 15 per cent in The Bahamas), a calamitous dip in economic growth.

Despite protestations by the current and past governors of The Central Bank, both extremely intelligent men, that the Bahamas is not headed for devaluation because foreign currency reserves are so healthy, ahead of regional and many international percentages, the reality is they are speaking of the present. If we continue on a single outdated economic model without steps toward meaningful diversification, we will surely end up like Jamaica. The difference is that the haves will have already moved their money offshore. And the rest of us will be paying twice as much for a loaf of bread and other basic necessities.

These are serious times, indeed. There has never been more at stake. As Bahamian voters go to the polls, we can only hope that they take the looming issue of devaluation with them as they cast their vote for the party of their choice. To ignore the essentials - education, environment, rules of law and governance and the economic model on which the country spins - is to ignore what kind of future our children and their children will inherit. And that would be the greatest travesty of all.