The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Progressive Liberal Party’s re-election campaign rolled through Eleuthera Friday, with residents turning up to Hatchet Bay to show support for Clay Sweeting and Clifford “Butch” Scavella, the candidates for North Eleuthera and Central and South Eleuthera respectively.

Prime Minister Perry Christie pitched Mr Sweeting, who lost the 2012 race to the Free National Movement’s Theo Neilly, as the kind of man “that young men should be like in the Bahamas.”

“Convince (the people) of your goodness Clay,” Mr Christie said. “Let them know that you are real. Any mother could say to her child, ‘I want you to be like Clay.’ There can’t be no more eloquent a statement in support of that.”

Mr Scavella rose through the ranks in the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) because of his disciplined nature, Mr Christie said.

The nation’s leader reflected on how Mr Scavella became RBDF commodore.

“I had the privilege of commissioning an inquiry into the defence force by the Canadian armed forces,” Mr Christie said. “They sent out a real admiral of the navy and a major general of the army about what we could do to improve the force. They said Mr Prime Minister, we have to advise you on who in our opinion should be made the lead person at the defence force. We have looked carefully at all who are eligible for appointment to that post. We are unanimous, and they were joined by Paul Adderley and Dr Keva Bethel, and they said there is one person we have found who is so committed to discipline that we feel he might only last five years because he’s a man of great discipline, say people (going to) run from him. That man who could whip the defence force into line right now is ‘Butch’ Scavella.”

Mr Christie did not directly refer to the FNM and its candidates for Eleuthera in his speech.

PLP Chairman Bradley Roberts did, however.

He accused the FNM’s candidate for North Eleuthera, Howard “Rickey” Mackey, of owing money to the Bahamas government, including thousands of dollars to the Department of Customs.

Mr Mackey has since confirmed to Tribune Business that he does owe the government agency money, promising to pay the outstanding sum today.

The PLP chairman also accused the FNM candidate for Central and South Eleuthera, Stephen Thompson, of allegedly allowing his BTC bill to go unpaid for months.

Observers have suggested that recent boundary cuts, which transferred two polling divisions formerly in North Eleuthera and placed them into South Eleuthera, fortifies the two major parties’ strengths in the respective constituencies, that is, the FNM’s traditional strength in the north and the PLP’s strength in the south.