The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Perry Christie stood on hallowed ground in South Andros and unleashed a poorly timed rant aimed at Hubert Minnis. It backfired big time. Instead of meeting the intent of maligning Dr. Minnis as unfit for the Office of the Prime Minister, it showed that the current occupant lives in la la land.

The objective reader was pained to follow the press account of what Christie had to say. It was disjointed, contrived and loaded with so many meaningless fluff phrases that even the students at the new primary school he was opening could tell that the Prime Minister had drifted off the reservation. He was there, after all, to praise the man in whose honour the school was being named.

Andros has produced some of the smartest Bahamians ever to have served in public office. Former Cabinet Secretary Rodney Bain hailed from Andros, as was timber voiced Clarence Bain who first put the phrases “Fish, cut bait or get the hell out the boat” and “Andros, my Andros” into Sir Lynden Pindling’s mouth.

And, of course, the Governor General, Dame Marguerite Pindling is a proud Androsian who can easily spot a bullfrog dressed up in soldier clothes.

Androsians know that book learning doesn’t necessarily produce the smartest people. They have more time for those who speak softly but carry a big stick. Christie tried just a bit too hard to impress them with his fancy words but his efforts fell flat.

He embarrassed himself and proved to even the first graders in the audience that perhaps the untested Dr Minnis is a better choice this election than the verbose, loquacious, do nothing Prime Minister now begging to continue in a job that will keep him on the public dole until he is just shy of 80.

Against that backdrop, Minnis (a spritely 62 year old) must resist the temptation to sit back and let Christie shadow box his way into greater public ridicule. Impetuousness got the better of Christie on a public stage and he lashed out with vulgar sign language. When Minnis gets under his skin he gets petty and personal.

Even Christie’s handlers are perplexed. A video making the rounds on social media shows a zombie-looking Christie alighting the stage only to walk right past the lectern before being guided back to centre stage to perform his ring master act in a campaign choreographed solely to say what the PLP thinks Minnis can’t do if he won the government, rather than to account for what the PLP did (or rather didn’t) do these last five years.

Obfuscation is the hallmark of Christie’s stump speech for political rallies. We await the manifestos this political season because no doubt the PLP’s gospel of promises could win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction writing. This time their snake oil pitch will probably lack catchy phrases and feel good slogans.

The phrase “Believe in Bahamians” will only bring them scorn and ridicule so they will have to ditch that. “Solutions for Crime”, is a late non-starter. And the promise of 10,000 jobs, well, even poker-faced Brave Davis couldn’t pull off that snow job this time around.

And so it will likely be that the PLP, in existence since 1953 -- a respectable 64 years, 35 of which they have been in government – will have to pin their hopes on the revival of a dubious economic gamble called Baha Mar.

Jobs there are reserved for a lucky few who live in Nassau. Dog eat your lunch if you live on Grand Bahama or any of the Family Islands that Christie turned his back on.

If Baha Mar opens before election day and if the PLP can throw a big enough carnival and provide enough T-shirts, cold beers and other “refreshments”, then maybe enough people will forget the misery inflicted on them these past five years and send Christie and his team back into power.

As invigilators of our politics Bahamian voters tend to mark hard. They are not likely to be as forgiving or as gullible this time around, as Christie is praying they will be.

THE GRADUATE

Nassau,

March 25, 2017.