The Tribune

AS the Free National Movement (FNM) celebrates the 34th anniversary of its first election to office in 1992, there are lessons the current FNM might draw from that victory.

Though we’re in a new century and era, the party might recall what is required to win office and to govern effectively, especially after its recent general election loss and the continued poor governance of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP).

The FNM of that day convinced the Bahamian people--weary after decades of mismanagement and corruption--that it had the quality of leaders and vision to turn around a country stagnating from government dysfunction and the collapse of public services.

The FNM cannot simply revel in the glory of 1992 or try to repeat what it did back then. The public mood, voter expectations, and means of communication have changed significantly in the past three decades.

What has not changed is the need for a powerful compelling message about a potential new era of reform and modernization, advanced by leaders the public believes can deliver change and not just become a revolving door of politicians failing to capture the public imagination.

Today, both major parties are struggling to garner 50 percent of registered voters. As in many other countries, voters have lost faith in politicians. They are hungry for leaders they believe are genuinely interested in their daily struggles.

The PLP’s advantage has been the ability to mobilize its base at election time. Much of the FNM’s base has collapsed. The party is struggling, like the PLP, to attract younger and new voters.

That the FNM has yet to launch a serious postmortem and far-reaching analysis of the electorate after its second crushing general election defeat is telling.

Prior to 1992, the Bahamas economy was in a nosedive. Our international reputation was shattered. Much of the social fabric was torn asunder by a pernicious drug culture, which senior PLP officials either tolerated or in which some were complicit.

After the FNM’s and Hubert Ingraham’s historic defeat of the PLP and Sir Lynden Pindling in 1992, the deposed leader cockily and wrongly bragged that the election was an anomaly, that the FNM could not govern the country, and that the PLP would return to office in five years.

From 1992 to 1997, the FNM steadily fulfilled many of the promises of its manifesto. The first Ingraham administration began revamping the economy and our tourism product. It initiated an extraordinary upgrade of the country’s infrastructure, both in New Providence and the Family Islands.

Ingraham and the FNM launched an era of reform and modernization, which included greater transparency and accountability, and improved conditions and standards in the public service. Today, we are in another depressing period of opaque, non-disclosive, and unaccountable governance.

Critically, the FNM did not engage in the wide scale corruption and victimization that marked much of the Pindling era. Ingraham insisted on tabling heads of agreements before parliament. The party famously advanced democracy by ending the state monopoly on the broadcast media.

Voters saw a government in action trying to improve their daily lives. Voters believed that public funds were being used for their benefit not the benefit of political cronies. Beginning in 1992, the FNM dramatically increased the number of Bahamians receiving Crown Land.

The highest level of growth and lowest level of unemployment in the history of an independent Bahamas helped the FNM to secure a historic 57 percent of the vote in 1997.

State-run hotels were privatized, boosting employment and the economy, easing some of the drain on the Public Treasury.

“The dramatic rebound in tourism revitalized the economy and public finances. This dramatic growth helped to provide funds for investments in infrastructure, health care, education, social services and other areas of national development.”

Throughout The Bahamas, the FNM transformed the country’s infrastructure. This included new and upgraded health care facilities, housing, police stations, government offices, town centers, airports, roads, bridges, docks, water systems, schools, post offices, and other facilities.

Long-neglected Family Islands that the PLP had abandoned for decades, received access to services taken for granted on New Providence and Grand Bahama.

A 30th anniversary article, The New Birth of Freedom, recalled the FNM’s success in transforming a tourism plant and product that were moribund.

“The era of reform and modernization transformed a stagnant Bahamas and an anemic economy teetering on the brink of collapse. The main priority was economic restoration. This required the revival of tourism and the provision of modern infrastructure the length and breadth of the country…

“The decade of the 90s started with considerable discussion about low-spending tourists visiting the Bahamas. It ended with the highest levels of visitor satisfaction, visitor spending, and hotel occupancies that The Bahamas had ever enjoyed.

“A substantial reason for this transformation was that the 1992 election ushered in both a new philosophy and new approaches in the conduct of national affairs, with tremendous implications for tourism, the largest sector of the economy…

“This included the conversion of the benefits of the Hotel Encouragement Act from a rebate to an exemption that improved the cash flow of many properties that often waited for more than a year for refunds due under the Act.”

A former senior government official, who worked in the first two FNM administrations of Mr. Ingraham, described the gargantuan task of rescuing The Bahamas from the misrule and maladministration of the then-PLP.

A culture of slackness and entitlement was pervasive, encouraged by many in the PLP oligarchy, who raided the state with plundering zeal as social values declined and positive social mores atrophied. A syndrome of lawlessness and irresponsibility spread tentacles throughout the society, laying waste to basic values such as paying one’s bills and abiding by basic laws and rules.

For a decade, from 1992 to 2002, Ingraham and the FNM labored to rebuild the country and to address the social decline and culture of criminality that had metastasized.

A part of this effort was ensuring greater responsibility and accountability by citizens in terms of a basic obligation such as paying taxes or funds owed to public corporations, abiding by the rule of law, and respecting the general order in the country.

For some years now, The Bahamas has slipped back into a period of decline. Standards in government and parliament continue to deteriorate. Public services are in crisis. Corruption is rampant. Most Bahamians feel that we are going backwards.

The ongoing success of the Coalition of Independents and the inability of either major party to win a majority of voters suggests a broader public hunger for a party that can offer and implement good and generally honest government.

This is both the opportunity and the challenge for the FNM as it celebrates the dawn of one the best eras of government in Bahamian history.