Bran: Documents show 'true democracy' denied to Bahamians for years
By PAUL G TURNQUEST
Tribune Staff Reporter
tribune242
pturnquest@tribunemedia.net
CITING the close working relationship between the leaders of the PLP and FNM in recently revealed Wikileaks documents, DNA leader Branville McCartney said it should now be painfully obvious that "true democracy" has been denied to the Bahamian people for many years.
"There is no doubt that both the prime minister and the leader of the opposition have been friends for many, many years. They have been business partners and nothing has changed. They contact each other on a regular basis and they seem to want to ensure that each one of them will be successful in their own right. When people now speak about a two party system, it is indeed a two party system now; you have on one side the PLP and the FNM together, and on the other you have the DNA. There is no doubt about that," Mr McCartney declared.
Pointing to a US Embassy cable from 2003 released by Wikileaks, in which Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham is quoted by a US official as saying that he speaks to and offers advice to PLP leader Perry Christie a few times a week, Mr McCartney said there is no surprise why both political parties want to make the upcoming election purely about both the PLP and the FNM.
"This is exactly what they want. If it's not Mr Ingraham, then it is going to be Mr Christie and vice versa. That's how it is and that is how it has been. They are playing yo-yo with the Bahamian people," he said.
This tactic, Mr McCartney said, denies the Bahamian people a true democratic process because as long as both leaders of the PLP and the FNM are working together, the Bahamian people never really have an option.
"They are working together, and they will try to work together to try and stop the DNA from becoming the next government of the Bahamas. That has been said to me personally. You would recall when Mr Christie was ill as prime minister, he called Hubert Ingraham to ask for his advice. What does that tell you? The Bahamian people ought to really see beyond that and go for an entity that will give true change for the country.
"If these guys were truly serious about change and serious about moving forward, both of them would have stepped down and allowed some of the other persons in the FNM and the PLP to take the reins."
The DNA is expected to travel to Grand Bahama next week and introduce the island to three of the six candidates they expect to name there for the upcoming general election.
The party has said it hopes to have a full slate of 41 candidates to challenge both the PLP and the FNM in every constituency.
Mr McCartney is the current independent MP for the Bamboo Town constituency.
May 24, 2011
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