Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham speaking to the media after registering to vote with his wife Delores at Government High School this week. Photo: Shawn Hanna/Tribune Staff
By TANEKA THOMPSON
Tribune News Editor
tmthompson@tribunemedia.net
FORMER Prime Minister and Leader of the Free National Movement Hubert Ingraham called on Dr Hubert Minnis, Loretta Butler-Turner and others who are fighting in the party to find a way to put their differences aside or face the possibility of the Progressive Liberal Party winning the next election with a minority of votes.
Speaking to The Tribune yesterday, Mr Ingraham said if Prime Minister Perry Christie can work with those in the PLP who have openly challenged him for leader, he does not understand why the same thing cannot happen in the FNM.
He stressed that the electorate likes to “punish” divided parties and the FNM will be at a “disadvantage” if members do not find a way to work together. He also said the FNM must find a way to make a deal with the Democratic National Alliance ahead of the next election.
“In my opinion the FNM needs to give focused attention to resolving the issues that divides its parliamentary group, so they can present a united front to the public of the Bahamas,” Mr Ingraham said. “If Perry Christie and Brave Davis, if Perry Christie and Bernard Nottage, Perry Christie and Alfred Sears can get along together in the PLP, I have no idea why Hubert Minnis and Loretta (Butler-Turner), Hubert Minnis and Hubert Chipman, Hubert Minnis and Richard Lightbourn can’t get along in the FNM’s tent.
“It seems to me to make sense to present the public with a united front, the public does not like divided parties. In fact they like to punish parties when they are divided and the extent to which the FNM can get itself together, put us in a position to be able to talk to the DNA, and if they are not talking any sense, the FNM has the opportunity now to take its Senate seat back from Mr (Branville) McCartney and proceed and tell the public why they can’t do a deal with them and why the public ought to focus its attention on voting for the FNM as an alternative to the PLP.”
In December, Mrs Butler-Turner was appointed leader of the Official Opposition after she and six other FNM MPs wrote a letter of no confidence in Dr Minnis, who remains FNM leader. She later appointed Mr McCartney to the Senate.
In response, Dr Minnis told the group to quit the FNM or face disciplinary action. Mrs Butler-Turner has since announced plans to run as an independent in the next election.
When asked if he agreed with the MPs’ decision, Mr Ingraham said: “I don’t even want to get into that part of it. That’s not the issue. The issue is they are where they are and they need to move from where they are to a point where they can present a united front to the public of the Bahamas.”
He added: “If they don’t (come together) they are at a disadvantage. That’s my opinion. I’m only giving my opinion. My opinion and $1.50 I guess will buy a cup of coffee.
“I think that they need to consider doing that. Find a means by which they can live together in harmony, just as the PLP has done and is doing. There are great differences between the PLPs whose names I called just now and Perry Christie and there (are) differences between Minnis and these other people, I just called their names. They have a common set of beliefs and they need to work towards dealing with that without allowing personalities and all these other things to get in the way.”
He also likened the fracture in the FNM to the uproar in the Republican Party over Donald Trump’s presidential run.
“The United States just elected Mr Trump, most of the Republicans did not want him and his political leadership,” Mr Ingraham said. “They are all together now. Same thing in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the world. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that unless you are together you might end up with the opposition votes being split and the PLP winning the election with a minority of votes. That could happen.”
Mr Ingraham resigned as FNM leader in 2012, after the party lost the general election. Dr Minnis has faced intense criticism since getting the job in 2012, with many saying he is inadequate, even though he has been voted into the post three times. On two occasions he was unopposed, with Mrs Butler-Turner dropping out of the race at the last minute in 2016. She lost her bid to unseat him in 2014.
When asked if he thought Dr Minnis has what it takes to be prime minister, Mr Ingraham was noncommittal.
“He has been elected leader of the FNM,” he said. “That is what the FNM wants and people have to decide whether they are going to vote for the FNM or not. It is too late to have changes now.”
As for whether he thinks the dissenting MPs can win their seats as independents, Mr Ingraham brushed off this question.
“It’s not a question of that. The FNM must make every effort to get everybody together and if at the end of the day it cannot get together, the FNM got to say you are either FNM or you are not FNM.
“But there has to be reasonable efforts made to resolve the issues and to come together. It cannot be what’s happening now. What’s happening now is not in the interest of the FNM in my opinion.”
Comments
John 7 years, 2 months ago
Is it not a little too late
sealice 7 years, 2 months ago
Unification won't do crap you see how cocky these PLP fuckers are they know they already have won the election they might not even have to pay to be this election as 2012 because the opposition is so confused....
Required 7 years, 2 months ago
How much does HAI think his opinion is worth, because $1.50 doesn't get you anywhere near a cup of coffee in the Bahamas he and PGC have created over the past 25 years...
birdiestrachan 7 years, 2 months ago
Only Pap"s children care. about what he has to say. Besides ":roc with doc" said the Ingraham era is over.
abe 7 years, 2 months ago
yeah I think you are right
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viewersmatters 7 years, 2 months ago
It's never too late unless one accepts defeat. Minnis is indeed a very annoying leader and doesn't has the best interest for the people in his heart and so is McCartney but unless either can get the attention of the young people to be in favor of them the PLP would win and riegn over the Bahamas for another term, at least after defeating LBT Minnis offered unity along with other positions but her ego and negative influence got the best of her and now she's standing along instead of working to better the future of the Bahamas and all who standed by her side has abandoned her. Now it's time for her and Rollin to put pride last and the people first to work with the FNM to help win this election. If Minnis was removed as leader once am very sure it can happen again and if he doesn't stop taking e everything for a joke and using the pain and suffering of the people for political gain I do hope next time he's removed permanently into backline of politics. And one must agree DNA has no chance of winning more than two seats if all of that, the DNA could barely find a full slate of candidates much less win election McCartney needs to put ego aside and think about the better of the country yes people are fed up but it doesn't mean they're interested participating in the election. It's never too late to make a change unless one accepts defeat
Honestman 7 years, 2 months ago
Hubert Ingraham needs to take part responsibility for the shambles the FNM finds itself in today. He should have continued for two more years and used that time to stabilise the party and find a successor prior to his retirement. Had he done so the FNM would have been ready to end the calamitous reign of Perry Christie. Instead the country can only hope and pray that even hitherto loyal PLP supporters are sickened enough to vote these jokers out.
ThisIsOurs 7 years, 2 months ago
I wonder, or I wonder if under the Westminster system he did the appropriate thing...took responsibility and stepped down...dunno
DDK 7 years, 2 months ago
True that!
John 7 years, 2 months ago
The fact is many Bahamians have grown use to hard times. The power is off in many homes, and in others it is more off than on. Many homes stock their cupboards with noddles and tuna rather than traditional groceries and others have taken their children out of private schools and put them into government schools. In other words they learn how to make do without the government and make ends meet after years of long suffering. They are weathering the storm, economic one and Hurricane Mathew, and some cannot wait to tell their politician where to go when they knock on their doors. The older folks refer to the politicians as a bunch of crooked clowns, and "ainn none a dem no good," and the young people say 'all a dem is be jokin.' In other words 'I can do bad all by myself. And they gonna do what they wanna no matter who you put there.' Then of course those who are loyal to party and to politicians will get out and vote as well of those looking for political patronage. While they showed a united front for the election, many Republicans are still at odds with Donald Trump. Many are still trying to wrap their minds around the fact that he did win the election (by whatever means) and that he sits in the White House as president of the United States. And many republicans are among others who feel it is just a matter of time before....(u guess)
DDK 7 years, 2 months ago
You forgot to mention the deplorable condition and goings on at the PMH. If you get sick in this country and have no medical insurance............
ashley14 7 years, 2 months ago
I don't know What John? Lisa Seriously I'd like to know what you mean.
Publius 7 years, 2 months ago
Not only is it too late for what Ingraham is talking about, it was never possible in the first place given the persons involved. They all always knew what was a stake. But it never mattered more than their selfish ambitions.
Stapedius 7 years, 2 months ago
I just wonder if HAI was giving any advice to those morons long ago. Say what you like about him he held that party together.
JohnDoe 7 years, 2 months ago
Your memory must be very short. Before this latest debacle, HAI orchestrated the greatest fracture in the history of FNM before the 2002 elections in the manner in which he handled the leadership transition. Therefore, not quite sure holding the Party together while being the government is the same as holding it together while in opposition. In addition, let us not forget that HAI never really served as Opposition leader before the 2007 elections. He allowed Tommy to do the heavy lifting and then took over just before the election which he was trying to do to Minnis this time again. HAI has done some positive things for the country and I am by no means anti-HAI but let us not make him out to be what he clearly is not.
proudloudandfnm 7 years, 2 months ago
As far as I'm concerned FNM or PLP don't matter. Minnis and Perry both in a race for worst of all time... Voting in this election is a waste of time. Whoever wins can have it. They all suck....
sheeprunner12 7 years, 2 months ago
Ingraham cannot stand up now and seem so statesman-like after cowardly running away and leaving the shell-shocked rookies to be eaten alive by the PLPs in 2012 ....... Minnis should not pay HAI any attention ........ Ingraham's era is over
DEDDIE 7 years, 2 months ago
Minnis tried the unity route and it failed miserably. To bring LBT back is absolutely foolish. My advice to Minnis is deal with them in the same manner that HAI would have dealt with them
JohnDoe 7 years, 2 months ago
HAI is a hypocrite not just for the way he left but for what he has been doing after he left. After leaving the Party in a vacuum and disarray and after trying to covertly undermine Minnis for the past couple years he now unapologetically says unity is needed as if he was not involved in the disunity and disarray. Well HAI why just talk about unity in the third person, state unequivocally that you support the three time duly elected and legitimate leader of the Party TODAY and call the spectacle that is LBT and the six angry men exactly what it is.... a spectacle. Minnis for sure has not performed like a star and has hurt himself with some self-inflicted wounds and therefore has his detractors, of which I am one. However, the fact of the matter is that he is the duly elected leader of the Party, having won on multiple occasions fair and square and he did not use the trickery that the PM had to stoop to to win. As I see it there are still several strategic avenues that can be exploited but time is running out. However, most of those strategic avenues would require HAI to become apart of the solution and not the problem and therein resides the rub. HAI has always been only for HAI as he needs the glory to feed his non-satiable ego. The fact of the matter is HAI wanted to be PM and maybe had a issue with LOP but to me appears to be quite comfortable with PGC as PM. In short HAI is still a PLP at heart.
SP 7 years, 2 months ago
......... We simply CANNOT survive another 5 years under Christie and the PLP ............
Even if Minnis is perceived as not the "perfect" choice, he certainly CANNOT be worse than Perry Christie and the country definitely needs change.
Contrary to popular opinion that the PLP might win by default as a result of a disjointed opposition, the same is even more true for Minnis and the FNM who also could win by default because the electorate are totally fed up with Christie and the PLP.
How many people will risk voting PLP despite widespread perception that Christie is anti Bahamian and a total failure?
I certainly won't!
licks2 7 years, 2 months ago
Ex-MPs and others in the former FNM party accused the current leadership of "stripping" the party of the old guard going into the future. . .in essence creating a new political order. . .one devoid of most old players who have remained stagnant in the "all-for-'me baby" genera of how to run this nation! Doc says he is carrying out a political revolution that all parties must do in order to be relevant in the future and changing Bahamas. . .a government style of national over friends, families and lovers interests! The PLP convention shows that need. . .that party has evolved into a big joke!
Revolutions have been, and will remain, facts of life because of the structural nature of prevailing relations and feeling of entitlements in political power. Precisely because such relations are structural and they will never just “fade away” - as well as because ruling classes resist the gradual elimination of these "ENTITLEMENTS" and to the very end-revolutions emerge as the means whereby the overthrow of these relations results where long-term change is realized.
From the nature of revolutions as a sudden, radical overthrow of prevailing social and (or) political structures-leaps in the historical process-one should not draw the conclusion that an impenetrable "party entitlements" wall separates evolution (or reforms) from revolution.
Quantitative gradual political/social changes do not naturally occur in political parties, as do qualitative revolutionary ones. Very often the former prepare the latter especially in decades of decay in their mode of operation. Prevailing economic and political power relations can be eroded, undermined, increasingly challenged or can even be slowly disintegrated, by new relations in operations and the political strength of revolutionary leadership (or major class fractions) rising in their midst;. . .as we now see with the doc and how he restructure the FNM. "Entitlement" yelps we are hearing from LBT and crew what generally characterizes periods of pre-revolutionary crises. . . before the leader who has the "right stuff" to live Rudy Kaplan's "IF" . . .will remain focus, steadfast and resolved in the face of those who oppose the new party revolution! But erosion and decay of a given social and/or political order remains basically different from its overthrow. Evolution goes hand-in-hand in old guard revolutions. . . if you want a different outcome. . .TRUE PARADIGM SHIFT IS IMPERATIVE. . .this is why I join the doc in saying. . ."Papa era is OVA". . .and in order to effect real and true systemic change. . . the compromised players must go as well . . .this takes a man of inner vision, strength, focus and resolve. . .not one who is jiving and conniving to protect his/her personal best interests over the national best interests! Lol!
DDK 7 years, 2 months ago
Wow! An extremely well-written synopsis of, dare I say, the status quo, or, should I say, the shape of things to come? Finally one of you bloggers who gets it! Need more sensible support for Doc!
DDK 7 years, 2 months ago
Mr. Ingraham is spot on. It's as simple as that. FNM Stop acting like a bunch of spoiled children and get it together for the sake of our Bahamas.
Well_mudda_take_sic 7 years, 2 months ago
Re-post: HAI is the furthest thing from a great statesman! You know the FNM party is no longer relevant when you have someone like Sidney Collie as its Chairman. Even those founders of the FNM party who are dead have rolled over in their graves. One can only begin to imagine the "low-life types" who now make up a majority of the FNM party's council members. It was none other than the very spiteful and bitter Hubiggity who left the FNM party in a shambles after he led it to a humiliating loss in the 2012 general election. Hubiggity was so beside himself upon losing his bid in 2012 to be re-elected PM that he made it a point to leave the FNM party an abandoned rudderless ship at sea that was all too easily (and quickly) pirated by the DImwitted Doc Minnis and his cohorts. Anyone who believes the FNM party is still a viable political organisation today is totally delusional from the worst type of wishful thinking - the type that cannot accept cold reality!
TalRussell 7 years, 2 months ago
Comrades! Let loose from Cooper's Town the former PM Papa Hubert. I for one sure as hell am up my chin with the red shirts waffling and would welcome Papa's contribution to share his ideas.
bahamiangoddedd 7 years, 2 months ago
Minnis has done a piss poor job leading the FNM, if he was a good leader LBT would not have had to challenged him. Then he has a deputy who is weaker than he is, just imagine him as PM taking advice from the same people who helped him to make all those bad decisions. The man is not a leader, I cannot imagine what 5 yrs under him would look like..
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