The Coalition of Independents - COI on the Resignation of Democratic National Alliance - DNA Party Leader, Arinthia Komolafe

10th December, 2021

Press Statement of the Leader of the Coalition of Independents (COI) on the resignation of the leader of the Democratic National Alliance (DNA).

The Coalition of Independents has been made aware of the immediate resignation of DNA leader Arinthia Komolafe. We would like to extend best wishes to Mrs. Komolafe on her future endeavors. Mrs Komolafe can be proud of the fact that she took on a great mantle as the second female leader of a political party in the Bahamas. The COI believes that more women should step forward into the political arena to assist in guiding our people into the New Bahamas.

 

Mrs. Komolafe has stated that she is not leaving front line politics while her resignation speech implies that she is departing from the DNA because she feels that third party politics is too challenging. This could mean that she may choose to align with one of the parties that she has been speaking out against for the previous two elections. While this would be disappointing, we know that as a talented Bahamian she would be an asset to any organization she is a part of.

The Coalition of Independents will continue to stand firm as the only political alternative with a vision to empower all Bahamians. We are unwavering in our view that the natural resources of this nation belongs to the Bahamian people and that every Bahamian should benefit from them. We are resolute in our belief that one day Bahamians will be put first in our nation. 

Lincoln Bain

Leader

Coalition of Independents

-End

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Hubert Minnis jumps again - before he was pushed!

Statement by the Leader of the Free National Movement (FNM) Party - The Hon. Dr. Hubert Minnis

Minnis has declared he will not run for the FNM leadership, nor will he allow his name to be placed in nomination!

At the end of November, the Free National Movement will hold a one-day convention to elect the Leader of the Party.  I will not nominate for the leadership nor will I allow my name to be placed in nomination.  I wish those who will contest for the leadership the very best.  

I will continue to serve in the House of Assembly as the Member of Parliament for Killarney.  I again thank the constituents of Killarney for their support since 2007 and during the recent general election.

As a former prime minister and in whatever role is assigned to me, I will support the work of the Official Opposition to advocate on behalf of the Bahamian people and to hold the Government accountable.

We remain in a deadly global pandemic.  I will continue to promote measures to save and to protect the lives and livelihoods of Bahamians, utilizing my experience in office and as a medical doctor.  I will never tire in advocating for the needs of the poor, the disadvantaged and the more vulnerable in our society.

It has been an extraordinary privilege to serve our country as prime minister and as a member of parliament.  I thank the Bahamian people and the members of the FNM for their support and encouragement.  I also thank the many well-wishers for their advice, prayers and assistance.

The Free National Movement has an extraordinary legacy, guided by the values of freedom, equality and opportunity for all.  At our 50th anniversary, there is much to celebrate as we renew our mission and embrace the future.

I have often spoken of the God of New Beginnings.  May God bless the FNM with wisdom, discernment and fortitude.  

And may God bless our Bahamas.

An Open Letter to Dr. Hubert Alexander Minnis, Leader of the Official Opposition - FNM party

Dear Dr Minnis:

You have had your opportunity to lead The Bahamas and make an historic difference, but you have squandered it from day one.  It all started with your demagogic position on VAT – leading up to the 2017 general election.

Although you were right at the table in the last Hubert Ingraham FNM Administration – between 2007 and 2012 - where the implementation of VAT in The Bahamas was set in motion, and subsequently implemented by the Perry Christie PLP Regime of 2012-2017 at 7.5%, you played brand new and publicly opposed it.

Then after the FNM won the 2017 election, you became the Prime Minister and increased the VAT rate to where it is today – at 12%!  So, you unwittingly provided all the nails for your political coffin.

It was a hugely unforgiving political move, as the Bahamian electorate would let you know in overwhelming fashion in the 2021 election.  You did it to your own lying self Dr, and you will always be remembered publicly for it.

On top of your unbearable VAT increase, came Hurricane Dorian and the Corona.  All hell break loose after that.  

And we, the poor people especially – were waiting patiently on your lying ass. You could of felt it - no doubt, so you knew what was coming down the pipe.  

That’s why you jumped before you were pushed, and called an early election.  Good move bro.  You are now officially done!

Regards,

Dennis Dames

The FNM, a political party without a competitive base

THE HUBERT ALEXANDERS HAVE WRECKED THE FNM BASE!

By Dennis Dames

It’s so sad to see the Free National Movement (FNM) party reduced to shambles and ruin.  It’s presently a national political entity without a viable base.  Remember, the FNM was an expanding family caravan of love organization in the 1980s – that was moving from strength to strength; until the arrival of the most illustrious protégé of the late PLP leader, Sir Lynden Oscar Pindling (SLOP).

His name is, Hubert Alexander Ingraham.  He was allowed by the selfish, hoggish and wicked FNM party leaders at the time to take over the mighty FNM, and live-out his mythic dreams of becoming the ruler of The Bahamas.  In doing so, he and his PLP goons along with the self-centered, greedy and evil FNM leadership gang -  embarked on a vicious internal campaign of political victimization, intimidation and bullying of the faithful FNM party base - which wanted to have nothing to do with the PLP most noted spy and long-knifeman - turned FNM chief, Hubert Alexander Ingraham.

So, by the year 2017- and after three non consecutive terms of Hubert Alexander Ingraham’s regime– the FNM had become a weak-base political party.  Then, under the leadership of Hubert Alexander Minnis - who also had the mythical vision of becoming dictator of The Bahamas, the shattered and shaky base of the FNM became unrecognizable.

Hubert Alexander Minnis ruled for a bit more than four years.  He totally abandoned what was left of the FNM base – and ran The Bahamas like a lone, wild and crazy man.

Minnis and his miniature and faithful band of FNM yes men and women lost miserably in the recent general election of 2021.  They did not have a winnable base heading in to the contest, and they really didn’t care; after all, they were quite confident and comfortable in the remote bubble of which they governed The Bahamas in for a little more than four years; 2017-2021.  It’s totally disgraceful and distasteful when one thinks about it.

The moral of the story for future FNM leaders is:  An incumbent political party without a spirited, passionate, and an ever-increasingly national base – will not be re-elected for a second consecutive term in The Bahamas – never again.

The PLP Lucky Day - September 16, 2021

The PLP simply lucked out on General Election Day - 2021

By Dennis Dames

I heard the now-Prime Minister, Philip Brave Davis repeat the false accusation that former Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis suppressed voters by calling an early general election – and hence not allowing new voters to register, and existing voters who moved into other constituencies over six months to transfer accordingly.

This is the same Mr. Davis who was calling frantically and at every turn for Minnis to ring the bell, from early 2020!

When Minnis prorogued the House of Assembly and and subsequently dissolved it sometime in August 2021, the only prevailing question on my mind was: did the PLP do its homework in terms of adding new potential party supporters to the national voters register?

This is why I took a conscious break from writing during the 2021 campaign, Mr. Davis. I was waiting on the results of the general election to give me the answer to that burning question in my mind.

Lo and behold, the question was answered; only about 65% of the registered voters participated.  It is perhaps the lowest voter turnout ever - in the history of Bahamian general elections.

Brave Davis and the PLP failed to mount an energetic national voter registration and transfer campaign leading up to the general election.

That’s why Mr. Davis, now PM Davis, is still crying about his fake claim of voter suppression in The Bahamas by Minnis.

Prime Minister Davis and the PLP simply lucked out or dodged the bullet on Election Day 2021, and won without trying, in my humble opinion.

The free press lives on in The Bahamas

 Punishing the free press

By CANDIA DAMES

During the course of the general election season, The Nassau Guardian, the official gazette, was cut out of government advertising.

The word came down to us early that this was due to our critique of the Minnis administration.

The company lost significant business as a result of this decision being taken.

Still, we pressed on, recognizing the role of a free press in a democracy. 

We carried no water for any side. 

We constantly strived to adhere to the highest ideals of journalism.

When we erred, we recognized our responsibility to correct our errors, to be respectful of our readers and to respect our daily role in documenting history.

In 2002, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham endorsed the Declaration of Chapultepec on our country's behalf.

The Declaration was written during a hemispheric conference on freedom of expression that took place in 1994 in Mexico, sponsored by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA). 

It contains 10 fundamental principles necessary to safeguard a free press. 

Ingraham stated during the signing ceremony that his government abides by the principles of Chapultepec and urged future leaders to foster a free press in The Bahamas. 

The Declaration is based on the essential precept that no law or act of government may limit freedom of expression or of the press, whatever the medium of communication.

The Declaration states: "The media and journalists should neither be discriminated against nor favored because of what they write or say.

"Tariff and exchange policies, licenses for the importation of paper or news-gathering equipment, the assigning of radio and television frequencies and the granting or withdrawal of government advertising may not be used to reward or punish the media or individual journalists."

It adds: "No news medium nor journalist may be punished for publishing the truth or criticizing or denouncing the government."

The long and short of it is that the Minnis administration punished The Nassau Guardian because it did not like what we were printing.

But we stand tall.

The Nassau Guardian has been around for 177 years. 

We have withstood administrations over many decades, we have seen prime ministers come and prime ministers go.

We have survived as a newspaper of record and as a business.

We recommit to the ideals espoused in the Declaration of Chapultepec as this new chapter in our national life unfolds.

The free press lives on.

ABORTION RIGHTS AT AN END IN AMERICA!

To be an American is to exercise human value founded in the notion of choice. Therefore, an abortion law that denies choice is an affront to the foundation of the meaning of being American.

By Professor Gilbert Morris

In the sloppy parlance of American jurisprudence - which constantly eliminates subtly or thinking - I am pro-life/pro-choice: that is, I am not in favour of abortion, but I don’t think it’s the government’s business of provenance to decide the matter.

When I was Scholar-in-Residence at George Mason University Law School, after a close study of the issue, I concluded that nearly all the judicial writing on this question were childish, argued poorly and lacking in internal logic or a logical mode of expression.

To be an American is to exercise human value founded in the notion of choice. Therefore, an abortion law that denies choice is an affront to the foundation of the meaning of being American.

In Japan, abortion is legal, yet the percentage of abortions in Japan is lower as a percentage of population than in the United States; with none of the hypocritical idiocy of:

1. Committing violence under the claim of preventing violence against the unborn.

2. Asserting a protection of the unborn on the basis that life is sacrosanct by the same people who largely support the death penalty.

3. Being a nation that refuses gun control laws - even after toddlers are slaughters with semi- automatic weapons - yet whilst asserting an empty commitment to life.

4. A nation with a volunteer military - so choice centred service - whilst denying choice to women and their significant others and families.

Put simply, there is no conceptual consistency in preaching about choice, whilst denying choice to women, particularly when after that same woman has the child, the right wing anti-abortionists are generally the same ones denying her child services or regular daycare and family leave once the child is born.

This suggests that the anti-abortion position is backward, intellectually spurious and feckless.

Moreover, it would appear to me reasonable and responsibly consistent that in a country in which children have been raped in churches for 150 years (that we know of) and where there are such high incidents of incest, ambition must be an option.

In my lecture on the issue at Mason in 1995, I argued: “In a democracy, the ordinary impulse and default posture in any crisis is deliberation and debate. This means persuasion is the fundamental mechanism in the protection and advancement of choice. As I have averred, I am personally opposed to abortion, but I take it to be unacceptable that government should invade this issue of private conscience, mandating it. As one who adheres to constitutional democracy, I trust decisions that emerge from deliberative debate, even if and where I may disagree with them. Indubitably, there can be no other position - I fear - for anyone who accepts the notion of choice as the foundation of human value”.

George Mason is a “conservative” law school. Yet, there are no conservatives in America; as they seek to conserve nothing. They are the merest ideological or tribal Republicans. The law school at Mason is named after Mr. Justice Antonin Scalia, an overrated right wing bloviator. who never wrote a single legal principle worth remembering, though he wrote many quaint phrases. Robert Bork, Kenneth Starr and Karl Rove were also on faculty.

The usual arguments at Mason had nothing to do with law or justice. The issue was there was always acquiring the power and exploiting the procedure to overturn Roe V Wade (1973). When Madam Justice Amy C. Barrett ascended to the Supreme Court last year, I warned that she would undermine Roe V Wade, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas (who has dissolved into an embittered reactionary fanatic), Justice Samuel Alito, Judge Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh - known as a party hack wiling to do anything to advance the Republican cause and probably the lowest brain amperage ever to have sat on the bench.

Last night, the US supreme court damaged Roe V Wade by refusing to ban a Texas law restricting abortion access; which means, the Texas restrictions are now the law of the land.

In refusing to ban the Texas law, the US Supreme Court lowered itself even further, by ignoring two cardinal ancient principles of law:

a. Standing - by which the courts determine whi has a valid interest in a case which the law should recognise.

b. Damage - where a complainant must show that he has suffered loss/damage within the parameters of the legal complaint.

The Texas law satisfies neither of these preliminary legal conditions that justifies a legal claim. And therefore, the US Supreme Court made itself a handmaiden to ideological hackery, leaving both rape and incset victims with no recourse.

One reflects on the grace and charm with which society in Japan treats this issue. One would think the “Christian” nation would’ve been the guiding example.

But alas it’s not!

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