The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

The open rebellion within the Free National Movement towards Marco City MP Michael Pintard is not unique, but the irrational expectations of the beleaguered leader’s detractors is borderline unprecedented. I cannot recall a high ranking political party official of Sir Lynden Pindling, Hubert Ingraham, Perry Christie, Hubert Minnis or current Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis going to the media to openly challenge their leadership, while publicly campaigning for someone else. When I say official, I am not referring to parliamentarians. Dissent within the parliamentary caucus is quite common in The Bahamas, dating all the way back to the 1960s with the PLP, which led to the formation of the National Democratic Party of Sir Orville Turnquest and Paul Adderley. Both Turnquest and Adderley refused to support Pindling’s planned Black Tuesday protest against the United Bahamian Party government in 1965.

By officials, I am talking about card carrying members of the party who are stalwart council and executive council members of the Progressive Liberal Party and the FNM. Pintard seems to be expected by these political dissenters within the FNM to just lay flat on his back while they walk all over him like a doormat. Any reasonable and measured retaliation on his part is disingenuously interpreted as him acting like a dictator -- a characteristic not in accordance to the democratic principles of the FNM we are told. I believe that many of these FNM rebels who are giving the Marco City MP a hard time had no issue with the strong, no nonsense and authoritarian leadership of Ingraham. Many of them probably were cheering Ingraham on when he fired Algernon Allen, Pierre Dupuch and Tennyson Wells from the Cabinet in 2001 and Kenneth Russell in 2011. Ingraham had learned well at the feet of his political father, Sir Lynden, who fired both him and Christie from the PLP Cabinet in 1984 or thereabouts, for their outspokenness on the alleged corruption within the government of the day. This was around the time of the 1984 Commission of Inquiry. Not only were Christie and Ingraham sacked from the Cabinet, both were expelled from the PLP.

The PLP would even field candidates in North Abaco and Centerville in the 1987 general election with the obvious aim at burying the two, politically speaking. The only thing that saved both independent candidates was Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield and Sir Kendal G.L. Isaac refusing to run FNM candidates in their areas. Undoubtedly, the votes of FNMs were the main reason both men were re-elected in that controversial general election. Had it not been for this kind gesture of Sir Cecil and Sir Kendal, Christie and Ingraham probably would’ve never become prime minister. Christie, as prime minister, would sack Marco City MP Gregory Moss as National Insurance Board chair in 2013; Bamboo Town MP Renward Wells as parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Works and Urban Development and Dr Andre Rollins as Gaming Board chair in 2014. Both Moss and Rollins were openly critical of Christie. Regarding Minnis, after Neko Grant, Theo Neilly, Edison Key, Richard Lightbourn, Andre Rollins and Hubert Chipman petitioned former Governor General Dame Marguerite Pindling to appoint Loretta Butler-Turner as the new opposition party leader in December 2016, all seven FNM MPs were asked by Minnis to resign from the FNM or face disciplinary action from the executive council of the political organisation. For months Butler-Turner openly led a rebellion against Minnis. Not one of the seven FNM rebels were renominated by Minnis, as the undisputed leader of the FNM in the lead up to the 2017 general election. At the time, I thought Minnis was well within his rights to discipline the rebels for openly undermining his leadership.

Today, Pintard faces a somewhat similar rebellion, albeit from a group of executives within the various branches of the FNM, who are seeking to have Minnis reinstalled as leader.

They’re mainly responsible for the chaotic state of the FNM, while they dishonestly shift blame to Pintard. Imagine supporters of Sir Clement Maynard, A D Hanna or Darrell Rolle openly campaigning on ZNS TV13 in the eighties for their candidate of choice to replace Pindling as PLP head. Pindling would’ve wasted no time in sacking the men from his Cabinet. Again, I cannot recall an executive council member of the FNM being openly critical of Ingraham. Christie may have had his faults, but no one can question the unflinching loyalty of PLP stalwarts to him. And despite the whispers of Parliamentarians planning on unseating him as PLP leader, no one dared to attempt such a move, which would’ve been political suicide. Pindling, Ingraham, Christie and Minnis all dealt swiftly and ruthlessly with rebels within their parties. But when it comes to Pintard, he is expected by FNM rebels to just sit idly by while they are working feverishly to embarrass and unseat him before the watching eyes of the Bahamian people. As FNM leader, Pintard is well within his rights to discipline the obstinate rebels.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport,

Grand Bahama

December 3, 2023.