FNM supporters campaigning in Centreville last weekend.
By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
FORMER Health Minister Dr Duane Sands said politicians are damaging their credibility by campaigning and hosting political events with large gatherings while COVID-19 rules are still in place.
Current rules restrict social gatherings on New Providence.
Up until yesterday, emergency protocols restricted the number of people who could attend weddings and funerals and participate in graveside services to 20.
However an Emergency Powers (COVID-19 Pandemic) Order released last night relaxed some of these rules. Funerals can now be held at the graveside with a maximum of 40 people, excluding officiants. Meanwhile weddings on New Providence, and mainland Abaco, Exuma and Eleuthera, may now be held in a religious facility once the number of attendees is limited to one third of the capacity of the facility.
The Free National Movement and the Progressive Liberal Party, by contrast, have held recent campaign gatherings which clearly feature more than 20 people.
While restaurants remain largely restricted to outdoor dining, the major political parties have occasionally hosted ratification exercises behind closed doors which feature dozens of people.
Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis and PLP Chairman Fred Mitchell told the press recently that health protocols have been followed at their parties’ respective campaign events.
However, some people at both parties’ events have clearly congregated within less than six feet of each other. At the most recent PLP event, some people did not wear masks.
Dr Sands, who appeared yesterday on The Hit Back with Nahaja Black show on Guardian Radio, said Bahamians are taking note of the double standards.
“What it does is it damages credibility and it makes it harder to achieve the end that it wants,” he said. “In large part the Bahamian people are not only compliant, they are fairly agreeable but they are also very perceptive. So they look at what we do and they say, ‘ok, I see the play, so it’s okay for you, but it’s not okay for me?’
“When people say ‘well, okay, you could have 100 people campaign but you could only have 20 people come to a wedding or to a funeral, now how that work again? So the virus don’t mess with people who campaigning, hey?’
“It becomes very important to call us out, the politicians, when these things happen. It is so so important, because sometimes you get caught up in the moment and you say boy ya know I had one pile of people campaigning with me and boom, everything good, but if it is good to campaign with 100 people, why would it not be okay to have 100 people at a funeral? The mixed messages confuse.
“We don’t always get it right, I don’t get it right, but if you are willing to say ‘hey, I screwed up, I’m sorry, if I get to do a do over I wouldn’t do it like this, the same way,’ then I think we would make up for it.”
The political events come as Bahamians continue to clamour for relaxed restrictions as reported COVID-19 cases remain stable in the country.
Comments
moncurcool 3 years, 1 month ago
This is what an honest politician does. Not sugarcoat, but call what is wrong wrong, irrespective of party. This is how you build a country.
SP 3 years, 1 month ago
Let's not get stupid during the silly season. There is no such thing as an "honest politician"!
birdiestrachan 3 years, 1 month ago
Because they have broken the law the competent authority now says 40 persons can go to the graveyards
.
tribanon 3 years, 1 month ago
We have seen all kinds of arbitrary double standards from our two-faced supreme ruler. Minnis is now so juiced with power and full of himself that he truly believes his lowly plebes should unquestioningly do all that he tells them to do no matter how silly or ridiculous his orders or protocols may rightfully seem to a reasonable person.
TalRussell 3 years, 1 month ago
A PopoulacesCommoner under the realm's constitution may arrest a redshirty offender if she/him has committed a breach of the social feets apart and unlawful assembly law and was committed in their presence or within his/her immediate knowledge.
Do your PopoulacesCommoner duty by Cuffin and lockin up, 'em share of redshirtys'!**
tribanon 3 years, 1 month ago
Looks like a lot of the money cycled back to the FNM party from padded government contracts awarded to the party faithful is being spent on the usual T-shirts and other political paraphernalia. But Minnis and Culmer no doubt considered those worthless expenditures to be much more important than buying doses of the 'better' vaccines for the Bahamian people. What a joke!
TalRussell 3 years, 1 month ago
@Comrade Trib, count your Sweet Jesus cause you would've been left even that much more nauseated but for the Dollar Store in Miami, had already sold out of their inventory vaccines. Yes?
WETHEPEOPLE 3 years, 1 month ago
Vote dem.out
TalRussell 3 years, 1 month ago
Here is the cold political reality. The majority of the voting popoulacesCommoner are neither card-carrying members of either the party of organized Redcoatys' or the Progressive Liberals. They are of the Independent kind but you'd be hard-pressed to spot supporting evidence considering the silence of we realm's Independents. between general election campaigns. Yes?
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