Leadership will be an issue in 2012 election
tribune242 editorial
IN A crescendo of emotion during the debate last month on the sale of BTC to Cable & Wireless, a member of the Opposition on the floor of the House loudly declared that the 2012 election would be fought on leadership.
Anxious to change the focus, Opposition leader Perry Christie at a PLP rally in Freeport on March 18 was quick to tell his party supporters that the general election will have nothing to do with personalities, but will be fought on issues. He declared that the Ingraham administration had been bad for the country, which had been "on a steep downhill ride for the past four years."
At his own rally in Nassau on the following evening, Prime Minister Ingraham directed the people's attention back to the drawing board. Agreeing that the election would be about jobs and crime, he wanted it to be known that it would also be about leadership.
"Don't forget, Mr Christie," he said, "it will also be about leadership. People of the Bahamas know what they can get when they are tired of what they got."
In the 2002 election, Mr Christie was an untried leader who promised that his was a "new" PLP --not of the Pindling stripe, which Bahamians had soundly rejected in 1992 -- but a new party that would bring them "help and hope." He also promised that, unlike the first PLP, his would be a scandal-free administration.
After five years under an indecisive leader and much scandal within the party, the PLP government failed to deliver on most of its promises. Other than much talk, there was little help and many voters had given up hope. As a result, the 2007 election was won on leadership. Five years of indecision was too much to tolerate. FNM leader Ingraham won the contest. Naturally, leadership is not an issue that Mr Christie would want to face again.
It is good to have all the answers for the country's ills, but if the country's leader is slow in executing them, then solutions are useless.
Mr Christie has claimed that Mr Ingraham is to blame for not quickly completing and executing plans that his government had taken to final signature, but which he had failed to sign. What Mr Christie does not seem to grasp is that if he had executed those agreements on time, many of the projects would have been completed, or nearing completion and Bahamians would have still been employed when the economic crash took the Bahamas and the rest of the world down.
However, it has to be admitted that Mr Christie's indecision has saved the Bahamas much. It gave the Ingraham government an opportunity to revise and renegotiate many of the contracts -- especially the Baha Mar deal, and the rejection of the Bluewater purchase of BTC, which would have been a disaster for this country.
In a radio talk show in February 2007 -- just before the May election -- then Prime Minister Christie admitted that he "could have done more" and was disappointed that he hadn't.
He said he had wanted to have a new straw market two years earlier. However, he only got around to signing the contract for a $22 million structure on February 16, 2007 - three months before the election. The old market had burned down in September 2001. When the FNM came to power in 2007 the overpriced new market was a controversial issue. Eventually the PLP's plans were scrapped, new plans were drawn, and on December 15, 2009 a new contract for its construction was signed. The Bay Street Market is now nearing completion.
Mr Christie said he wanted to have "the Royal Oasis opened a year ago, six months ago, and we're just now moving towards a final resolution of that" -- three months before a general election!
"Things have to take time and sometimes in the lives of politicians, the time is judged by five years," he told his radio audience. That is why a strong, decisive leader with vision is so important. The electorate has to understand that five years cannot accommodate an indecisive leader with an indifferent work ethic.
"I'm disappointed," Mr Christie had told his radio audience, three months before the Bahamian people voted him from office, "in the slowness of the realisation of the PLP's vision for the country. The major disappointment I have is that I could have done more."
It was an amazing admission of defeat - but with an excuse.
Mr Christie has presented the best argument of why Bahamians should not consider handing the government to him and his party in 2012. A rejection of the PLP at the polls in 2012 will spare both Mr Christie and the Bahamian people another five years of disappointment.
Even in defeat at the polls in 2007, indecision caused another 24 hours of confusion before the PLP could accept that they had in fact lost the government. According to his own testimony, Mr Christie had failed to grasp that a decisive, hard working leader was needed at the helm if much was to be accomplished in five years.
April 18, 2011
tribune242 editorial
A political blog about Bahamian politics in The Bahamas, Bahamian Politicans - and the entire Bahamas political lot. Bahamian Blogger Dennis Dames keeps you updated on the political news and views throughout the islands of The Bahamas without fear or favor. Bahamian Politicians and the Bahamian Political Arena: Updates one Post at a time on Bahamas Politics and Bahamas Politicans; and their local, regional and international policies and perspectives.
