The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

DAYS after flashing an obscene hand gesture that drew widespread attention and criticism, Prime Minister Perry Christie embraced a more familiar script during a rally Thursday night, putting the spotlight on the opposition’s internal fights and divisions.

Capitalising on Democratic National Alliance Leader Branville McCartney’s surprise resignation from the Senate earlier on Thursday, Mr Christie extolled the virtues of his government and urged supporters in the Carmichael, Golden Isles and Southern Shores constituencies to vote for his party’s candidates in their area: Keith Bell, Michael Halkitis and Kenred Dorsett, respectively.

“A party that is so divided and so weak (as the Free National Movement) would wreck this country while they continue their fighting,” Mr Christie said. “Register this please: politics is about people working together to a common end and a democracy is about giving people the right to select a group they think can effectively manage the country.

“People who are able to make those decisions must decide whether or not a combination of men and women who have demonstrated this incredible facility to fight each other, to say bad things about each other, to say damning things about each other, to call each other names that go to the root of their existence, how could they possibly be seen as capable of forming a government and having continuity in governance in a country like the Bahamas?”

Mr Christie suggested that had the opposition forces been the governing party of the country, uncertainty as to who would be leader of the country would exist.

“If the FNM were the government of the Bahamas today, who would be running the country?” he asked. “Who could say today that they know who would be running the country? I’ve lost track of how many senators, how many leaders and wannabe leaders they’ve been through. You vote for one today and the next day you got somebody else.

“Now today they’ve lost another senator,” he said, referring to Mr McCartney. “He said he couldn’t handle the seeds of confusion. (Those are) not my words, not your words, (they’re his) words. All this makes me even prouder of the team that I have, a team of hardworking talented leaders like Ken Dorsett, Michael Halkitis and Keith Bell.”

Mr Christie has made it clear that promoting his party as one of stability is central to his electoral hopes.

“Everything I must say must register in your mind that you have a PLP team and the opposition, either the DNA or the FNM, cannot put together the kind of team we have, and for that matter, we have no idea whether they can put together any kind of team,” he said. “The only team that has the energy, the expertise to make success is a PLP team. We’re not like those others, one night you see them dancing together, the next night they calling one another corrupt or saying they could never work together in their lifetime. You have all the evidence you need to know that they are incredibly unreliable and that you cannot make the mistake of relying on them to be able to form a government.”

Mr McCartney was appointed to the Senate last December by Long Island MP Loretta Butler-Turner, after she and six other FNM MPs had FNM Leader Dr Hubert Minnis removed as leader of the Official Opposition, citing his “weak” leadership.

Yesterday, Mr McCartney quit his Senate post, claiming Mrs Butler-Turner has sown seeds of confusion since she was appointed leader of the Official Opposition.