The Tribune

By Diane Phillips

We are entering what is called the silly season. I don’t think of it as silly at all. It is the most serious season we have and it only comes once every five years or so. It’s the moment in time when we figure out our future and if you think that’s silly, well, I cannot help you or hope to change your mind. Of course, there will be silly actions and words that leave us quaking in our boots or shaking our heads, but overall it is anything but silly.

We are entering a season for only the 12th time in modern Bahamian history when we have a chance to decide what government we want.

Relative to the rest of the world, including all those nations and states that count their politics by centuries not half-decades, we are babes in the woods. So if some candidates do or say silly things - or all candidates make promises no one could possibly keep - put it down to a bit of wishful thinking or unrealistic expectations, but not an evil attempt to defraud. We are still in our infancy, still taking baby steps.

That is no excuse for mischief, but it is a partial explanation.

As proud as we are of who we are, we are painfully new at this game of governance.

Politics of personality

We are so new that we have not yet established standards by which to judge performance. We do not have a set date for elections. We do not have a guarantee of transparency or accountability or a requirement for public consultation before decisions that affect us are made. We are short on standards and long on who you know. That makes us a very personal kind of governing practice – and I say practice with no malice intended. Physicians practice, why wouldn’t politicians? We may not think of it that way, but that is exactly the point. Without a measuring stick, we become emotional voters, governed by our hearts, identifying with personality over principle, colours chosen not because of who tromped on inflation or increased the national grade point average, but who we think “gets us” or has our backs. We lose sight of who governs best and embrace who we feel connected to. We take emotion to the ballot box, feeling either besotted or betrayed by our leaders.

Over the years, writers far more astute than I and far closer to the political scene have added immeasurably to the conversation. Two pieces, in particular, intrigued me so much that I have held on to them for years. The first was an Insight editorial during the Ingraham administration written by Bahama Journal publisher at the time Wendall Jones.

Good governance,
bad politics

“There is a view which is being espoused in political circles that the Free National Movement is providing good governance but bad politics, and that the former Progressive Liberal Party had good politics and bad government,” he began. Jones, now the Ambassador of The Bahamas to the US, continued to describe the then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham who when he “took the reigns of government, his soul burned with the zeal of reform”. He credited him with “practical knowledge of administration and handling the business of government with such skill that his public is being induced to take good governance as a matter of course”. But good governance, he said, “is just a detail, like shiny shoes and pressed clothes.” The FNM achieved its manifesto, from delivering essential equipment to PMH to electrifying islands that had never enjoyed the most basic infrastructure, but, said Jones, the PM lost sight of connecting with the grass roots and instead spent too much time cavorting with the rich and famous, resulting in bad politics. The PLP, he said by contrast, feel they have a “better communion with the average Bahamian”. In retrospect, I believe he would have credited that early attempt at government in the sunshine with a far heartier reception.

More than two decades have passed since Jones wrote those words and yet little has changed.

Colour of their skin

And now it has been 20 years since the late Norman Solomon asked in another editorial “Will a white man lead the country?” I could be wrong, but it feels like we are farther away from that happening than we were in 2005 when Solomon asked the question.

In another editorial earlier the same year, Solomon said what we all know, “What this country has always needed and continues to require is quality leadership, regardless of skin tone.” He quoted Dr Martin Luther King “who proclaimed that he wanted his children to be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”.

The one thing Norman Solomon got wrong was the description of himself as a “Political Pygmy”. He was a giant of a man who was not afraid to lead or to risk his life for the right cause, including exposing the drug trafficking in the 80s when the Colombian flag flew over Norman’s Cay in Exuma and Bahamians were not allowed access to the cocaine capital of the hemisphere, but Solomon sat on that beach for the most frightening moments of his life, loaded machine guns aimed at his head, to prove a point. What we truly need is more candidates of courage. Skin colour should be as irrelevant as a jar of jam on a local shelf with a sticker still marked in shillings, pence or pounds.

And so as we enter this serious season, remember this is our only chance in five long years where we search our souls for brave men like Norman Solomon and critical thinkers like Wendall Jones. This is our chance to assure women are equally represented. This is our chance to apply pressure, our moment to refuse to settle for mediocre. We may get a few silly moments, but we need not make it a silly season for as much our leaders of the past and present have succeeded or disappointed, as much as our leaders have attempted to do the right thing, I believe one element connects them all.

Regardless of party, regardless of real or perceived missteps or corruption or failure in some respect, somewhere deep down inside every single prime minister in the deepest recess of his heart, he has felt a sense of purpose and of urgency – to do right by his people. To leave a footprint and a legacy. To make a better Bahamas. There is that space in the heart of every leader, of most Cabinet ministers, of many members of Parliament, where he or she is driven by a desire to make a difference in their constituency, where they believe they can change the state of education or health care or crime or physical landscape or cultural apathy.

Somewhere between dealing with the realities of limited resources and harsh words from an opposition, somewhere in the vast abyss between budget constraints and Pollyannic dreams of an ideal community, that vision of a happy, healthy, well-connected, relatively crime-free community exists in the minds of people who run for office.

It is up to us, the electorate, to demand they remember the reason they ran, to put the footprint of good governance ahead of the strut of personality. It is up to us, the electorate and the affected, to demand standards and transparency and accountability and fair taxation and practices, true local government, true environmental management and preservation instead of reckless abandonment of the principles on which our environmental laws and regulations were founded.

It is up to us, the electorate, to demand more of the education system, to provide incentives to keep Bahamians at home, to think not in tracks that are routine but in trails that are innovative and creative.

The only silly thing about the season is ignoring its possibilities for the impact it will have on many a season to come. This is our time to lead by demanding what we want our leaders to be and far as I can tell, there is nothing silly about that.