EDITOR, The Tribune.
No matter how hard they try, the PLP can’t shake Peter Nygard’s dubious legacy. Always bragging about how much money he contributed to their campaigns, Nygard has become inextricably connected with the party in the mind of most Bahamians.
And just when they thought the coast was finally clear, he came back, like the Ghost of Christmas Past, to haunt them once again!
Back in February, when Nygard’s offices in New York were raided by the FBI, the PLP chairman Fred Mitchell told Bahamians to take it all with a large grain of salt. Nothing to see here! It was all a setup, a fraud designed by the PLP’s enemies.
With Nygard’s arrest on US charges though, turns out that Mitchell’s grain of salt is actually a big Nygard-shaped lump of coal, arriving just in time for Christmas!
The PLP really can’t complain. They have indeed been very naughty when it comes to Nygard for a long time.
When he got in trouble, first for environmental violations and then for harassing the environmentalists who tried to stand up to him, the PLP fell all over themselves to defend Nygard. Agriculture Minister V Alfred Gray called the Finland-born Canadian citizen “a Bahamian”, “a philanthropist” and said “I think he has given more to this country than many other Bahamians”.
Other PLP MPs took to the floor of the House to praise Nygard, while Mitchell himself, along with Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald, launched a shameful charade to attack and threaten Bahamians, a bizarre episode which led to Fitzgerald being fined $150,000 in connection with the release of stolen emails. To say the the PLP has bent over backwards for Mr Nygard is an understatement in the extreme.
No matter how many attempts they make to rehabilitate their image (Christie’s “New PLP” comes to mind) the party continues to be haunted by its unsavoury associates. From Colombian drug dealers like Carlos Lehder, to financial criminals like Robert Vesco, to individuals such as Mr Nygard. Like so many Grinches, these shady figures have continually threatened to steal the party’s joy.
What are Bahamians to think? Perhaps we should deal with the PLP’s latest alleged sordid connection in the same way we did the first one, and hold a commission of inquiry into the political connections of Peter Nygard in The Bahamas.
Maybe with a little more light shed on the matter, with a little truth and reconciliation, the PLP could find its way out of this curse, and be on the “nice list” by next Christmas, just in time for campaign season!
L LEWIS
December 16, 2020
Comments
themessenger 3 years, 4 months ago
The Commissioner of Police said “The matter as it relates to Nygard is now sub judice and I can’t comment on those,”
Does this also mean that any police investigation into allegations made against any PLP politicians who sampled Mr. Nygard's wares during one of his "we've taken back our country" parties will now also be quietly pushed back under the rug?
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