The Tribune

By SIMON

BAHAMIANS were angry at the blinding confusion and insufficient health protocols at the Advance Poll held in 2021 during another deadly COVID-19 wave. In the event, many voters stayed home then, and on election day.

The PLP base came out, while many FNMs and independent voters remained at home, resulting in a loss for the Dr. Hubert Minnis Government. The voter turnout was low by Bahamian standards.

The chaos and mass incompetence at the Advance Poll last Thursday, made 2021 seem like a paragon of efficiency. The Progressive Liberal Party rightly blasted the outgoing Free National Movement for the mess at the polls in 2021. The PLP promised to fix the irregularities and to ensure a well-functioning Parliamentary Registration Department (PRD).

Nearly five years later and things are egregiously worse.

The shocking display of confusion and incompetence was so bad last week, it seemed purposeful to many. The register for the Advance Poll was a royal mess. There were multiple polling divisions in one room at some locations. Some voters who were registered for the Advance Poll were not on the register for the Poll.

There were inadequate provisions for seniors and people with disabilities. Voters waited on long lines for inexcusable hours.

This was the worst run Advance Poll ever held in the country.

It does not augur well for election day, which promises to be another day of potential chaos, rule breaking, and dysfunction.

Where voters are standing on line to vote is supposed to be a sanitised area. The canvassing of voters on these lines is strictly forbidden. This rule was repeatedly and brazenly broken at the Advance Poll.

Will officers of the Royal Police Force do their duty in better helping to enforce the rules next week?

Still, Bahamians, in considerably larger numbers than in 2021, appear motivated to vote. They will likely remain on line for as long as it takes to exercise their right to vote and to express their views.

Years ago, a senior politician remarked that good and competent governance is good politics. Just as the FNM angered voters in 2021, the incumbent PLP did the very same this year ,despite the lessons of 2021.

The chaos of this year has its roots in the appointment of Mr. Harrison Thompson as Parliamentary Commissioner. During his tenure in the public service, Mr. Thompson has proven ineffectual, incompetent, and incapable of handling basic tasks in the offices he has held.

He was involved in a previous electoral mishap in local government elections. This alone should have disqualified him from becoming Parliamentary Commissioner. If ever there was a poster person of who should not have been charged with heading the PRD, it is Mr. Thompson.

His series of excuses for his failures and incompetence is staggering and incomprehensible. Most have rightly mocked his bizarre surprise at the amount of people who came out to vote at the Advance Poll, despite his office being the one to have registered the very people who came out.

Opposition parties long ago lost faith in Mr. Thompson to run a fair, competent, transparent, and efficient register and election day process. The confusion at PRD has scores of Bahamians deeply concerned about the integrity of the process.

Bahamians are both angry and questioning whether the massive dysfunction at PRD is purposeful and intended to disadvantage opposition parties in favour of the PLP. The rigging of the process and considerable irregularities is not without precedent.

In the end, it is Prime Minister Philip Davis who must be held ultimately responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. He ensured the appointment of Mr. Thompson. He could have chosen someone else or could have removed him.

The Prime Minister could have given PRD the personnel and the resources to ensure an efficient, functioning, and more transparent process, as former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham did after his election to office. Mr. Ingraham knew the many problems, irregularities, and fraudulent practices in the electoral process under the PLP he defeated in 1992. He significantly cleaned up the voter register and the Department.

Decades after majority rule and independence it is disgraceful that, as a democracy, we are still fighting to ensure an electoral process that operates smoothly, transparently, and with minimal rule breaking as possible. Further, the sums of money injected into this election are obscene.

Bahamians are also angry over the number of fraudulent documents in the possession of non-Bahamians and the proliferation of citizenship grants for certain individuals, all of which are designed to influence the final vote.

On the eve of yet another election, scores of Bahamians are anxious as to whether we can hold a fair and free election that honestly reflects the will of the people.

We will find out next week how free and how fair is the 2026 general election, and how secure is our democracy from myriad fraudulent practices and political corruption.

Most voters at the Advance Poll, despite their frustration and exhaustion, remained on line.  This was a good sign.

If there is a wave election and 80 percent of voters or more come out to vote, it may well be the Bahamian people who helped to defend and to protect our democratic future from all manner of undemocratic and diabolical threats.