The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

THE Political process in The Bahamas at the party level is a farce. It’s a travesty!

How does one refer to our practices at the party level as democratic, when less than 1 per cent of the eligible voters in our country, or in a respective party, decides who the leadership team will be.

In the Bahamian context, the concept of democracy has been greatly misused. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, democracy is a government “of the people, by the people and for the people”.

In The Bahamas, we’ve managed to reverse that concept of democracy. In The Bahamas, democracy has become a government “of the politician, by the politician and for the politician”. It is a sad state of affairs.

As a consequence of the flawed democratic processes in The Bahamas, which operates more like an autocracy than a democracy, we see the type of lethargy that we now have among voters. Bahamians at large are no longer enthused about the democratic process because experience has taught them that it never produces anything positively meaningful to their lives.

For a long time now, they’ve endured big, bold promises, which are long on style and presentations, but extremely short on content and delivery. When something is done, too few benefit, while the vast majority are left languishing in a state of poverty.

It’s about time that our country espouses real democratic conventions and it must begin at the party level. The process by which we elect leaders at the party level must be reformed. There ought to be a set of rules that we can agree upon by which the process can be more democratic and inclusive.

I personally believe that all card carrying members of a political party should have the right and opportunity to choose who their leadership team should be. The only people that would have a problem with this are those whose narrow interests have been served for years by the status quo. There are many formulas as to how this can be achieved. It’s a discussion that we should have with a view to change.

It cannot be right that a leader, on the eve of a vote at convention, can appoint hundreds of people and give them eligibility to vote. Let’s call it for what it is; it’s outright cheating!

In a democracy, leadership ought to rise or fall on their performance, not their ability to cheat and “stack the deck” in their favour, giving them unfair advantages over challengers.

What adds insult to injury is the fact that these practices are cheered on by people who ought to know better.

It’s time for transformational leadership to stand up and agitate for change in this regard.

Maybe even the next government formed should make sure, by way of legislation, that democracy is resuscitated in The Bahamas.

CONCERNED

Nassau,

January 24, 2017.