The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

The call is  being made for the Opposition forces in the nation to unite, but that call is coming too late. We heard no such talk when the official Opposition and its leader kept their shoulder to the wheel in the role of opposing, even when those who were elected to those positions refused to be led; we now know that they could never be led or would not allow themselves to be lead anywhere by anyone.

There are a couple of potential candidates who now find themselves at political crossroads that will not take them anywhere, but away from that which they most desire and they are running out of time.

The chief player, though not elected member of the Opposition is Branville McCartney, who in the words of the song by Adele, could have had it all, but he chose to listen to some familiar voices and cast the voters of The Bahamas into five years of pain. His prayer is that his political misstep is forgotten at the polls this year.

If he is not the “chosen one” in 2017, his political future over the next two political cycles is uncertain.

Coming up close behind him is Loretta Butler Turner who, though being constantly warned, refused to listen to reason or even be reasonable. It is ironic that she and McCartney could have been in very different places if they had exercised patience.

We must step back at this point and recognise that both of these personalities represent a very peculiar political demographic of disgruntled 45 to 55 year olds who have spent most of the last two decades switching political gravy trains.

I think that 2017 caught them unawares and they sort of reacted to the fact that we could be getting a leader that they were not ready for, hence the trial by political fire for Dr Minnis over the past 18 months. Now that the smoke has cleared, we see them scrambling around looking for a socially relevant political flashpoint to get the attention they so desperately need.

And then, there are the true spoilers who are capable of really crashing the party if they can get organised and keep the ball rolling, the UDP, WE March and Gatekeepers along with John Bostwick.

My guess is that the Prime Minister has two options, he can stall as long as he can and hope that the different movements lose steam and fizzle, but this allows the FNM to get back to what it has been doing all along – hitting up the constituencies, or, he can call a snap election,  bite the bullet and let the chips fall where they may.

Either way, the FNM has a credible chance as long as they did what the PLP did and remind them of the same things they did to win in 2012.

However, it is unlikely that the Opposition forces will never unite, the Bahamian people have no interest in being led by anything that has more than one head and they may have learned their lesson in 2012 and they will be voting PLP or FNM; if they do anything else there will not be enough “contracts to go around”.

EDWARD

HUTCHESON

Nassau,

February 7, 2017.