The Tribune

FOLLOWING its second consecutive general election loss, the Free National Movement (FNM) needs a period of discernment and dialogue. What it does not need is a reactionary rush to judgement, recrimination, bloodletting, and divisiveneness, that is sometimes the hallmark of some in the party, especially after an election loss.

Now is the time for wise heads and mature deliberation, not spasms of vitriol and reflexive decisions made in the midst of the understandable deep disappointment and frustration of party supporters, who must be listened to in-depth in the weeks and months ahead as the party rebuilds.

Following the FNM’s loss in 2021, the party made a variety of assumptions about the electorate and why it lost. While some of those reasons may have contributed to the defeats in 2021 and 2026, the party still does not fully grasp the structural internal and external reasons it failed to win.

The failure to win is the summit of a broader failure. The FNM can no longer assume that it has the base it once enjoyed. The party’s brand, identity, and soul are all in need of deep renewal. This newest cut hip may be the incentive the party needs to think fundamentally about its future. In this, the FNM has an advantage if it is willing to renew itself, both root and branch.  With a stronger base and a second win, the PLP has little incentive to change. It will giddily rest on its proverbial laurels, believing that it has the capacity and know-how to win a third consecutive term.

How might the FNM proceed? It will require a diversity of voices, including young people and women. It cannot be mostly men of a certain age sitting together arguing about and discussing the way forward based on their limited understanding and assumptions about the electorate and reasons for the defeat. The party needs to hear from informed critics from the outside, who may have a keen vantage point for assessing the state of the party and its failures.

The party will need a convention within a given period of time. It does not need a snap convention in a febrile and frenzied atmosphere, as was the case after the 2021 loss, when emotions ran high and good judgment often ran low. The party must avoid the toxicity of some veterans, who are often prone to circular firing squads, personal and venomous attacks, and mean characterizations of colleagues.

At the upcoming convention, the FNM must consider leadership at every level. In the interim, party members should begin an initial assessment of what the party requires, while studying the biographies, records, and capacity for growth of those who want to lead.

Some of those who have run in several cycles must consider their position and whether it is time to take up new roles that are not on the frontline. These are personal decisions that must be guided by the broader needs of the party.

But initial assessments and reports of the loss are only the beginning of a process. After the convention, the party’s leadership and members must engage in a thorough process of discernment and dialogue, followed by strategic planning for party renewal, new membership, and immediate preparation for the next election.

“Discernment is the mental ability to judge situations clearly and intelligently. It involves acute perception and good judgment, allowing you to accurately separate truth from error.”

Here is a good way to begin a discernment process: Before defensively pointing out what others got wrong in the leadup to the election and during the campaign, ask yourself, what you personally got wrong.

This must be done by everyone, ranging from the leader to party officers, operatives, donors, association members, PR and communications officials, operations, the election secretariat, et al.

Moreover, the party should be ruthlessly honest in assessing the quality of candidates and their campaigns.

Discernment requires a structured process. While it must be vigorous, honest, open, and perhaps at times heated, it must be done with mutual respect for those who lent their time, talent, and treasure to the party. As the FNM proceeds, it should be honest about internal factors that influenced the party’s loss, including: leadership, funding, quality of candidates, public relations, ground penetration, digital infrastructure, and social media.

But even if the party was mostly on its A-game in these and other areas, it still may have lost, though likely not as badly. A more vexing challenge may be the new structural realities of the electorate, many of whom are angry, at best, or indifferent to politics and politicians.

There is an anti-establishment mood by many turned off by both major parties. The vote swing to the Coalition of Independents (COI) is no longer a warning sign.

In many ways, it’s a harbinger.

If the FNM continues to look and feel like an old establishment party incapable of reigniting itself and politics, it may survive, but it will not grow.

Dialogue, or the exchange of ideas, opinions, disappointments, frustrations, etc., is often intense, but it doesn’t have to be vicious. Dialogue is not a series of shouting matches, where those in engaging in conversation are incapable of listening to each other. It often involves the suspension of quick and easy judgements. It requires active listening, the checking of egos, especially big male egos, suspending the need to win an argument, curiosity about other perspectives, and managing our tones.

FNMs should remember their shared values for the party and the country. The PLP has often been as divided as the FNM. Indeed, the PLP has endured some of the deepest divisions and disunity in our political history, including the near Christmas coup of 1962 that sought to topple Sir Lynden Pindling, and the 1965 departure of those who created the National Democratic Party (NDP).

The deepest division was the split that gave birth to the FNM. Quite early in the PLP’s tenure in office there were mounting concerns about the increasing lack of collegiality and the growing cult of personality surrounding Sir Lynden. There was alarm over policy decisions at odds with the party’s progressive philosophy. There were originally more dissidents than the eight who finally left to form the Free PLP and then the FNM.

When the vote of no confidence came, some of the more insistent critics of Sir Lynden and the direction of the PLP, buckled in their convictions, made themselves absent from the House chamber with dubious excuses or failed to vote with the dissidents.

It’s the nature of parties to have dissent and division. It’s about how a party manages these that makes it more or less united and electable.  The FNM chose “All Together” as a perennial theme, not as a one-time slogan.

At a memorial for a Meritorious Council Member this week, Dame Janet Bostwick reminded the party of the imperative of unity. Whomever the party chooses for leader, their primary task will be to be a leader who can heal wounds, listen actively, and unify the party.

Such unity will be needed for ongoing discernment and dialogue. It will be needed to rebuild a stronger base and identity, to be an aggressive and effective Opposition.

It will be needed to win.