The Bahamas: From Majority Rule to a Minority Mentality

From Majority Rule to a Minority State of Mind

The Bahamas, a nation born from the triumph of Majority Rule, is now being quietly governed by minority participation.  The very principle that defined our national identity—rule by the many—has weakened into a habit of rule by the few.

By Rick Fox
Nassau, N.P., The Bahamas

In the days following the Golden Isles by-election, Parliamentary Commissioner Harrison Thompson admitted officials were “baffled” by what they witnessed.  More than 4,000 registered voters stayed home—four thousand Bahamian voices absent from the democratic table.

This isn’t normal.  This isn’t healthy.  And this certainly isn’t The Bahamas our parents and grandparents fought to build.

It is a warning.

The Bahamas, a nation born from the triumph of Majority Rule, is now being quietly governed by minority participation.  The very principle that defined our national identity—rule by the many—has weakened into a habit of rule by the few.

We once fought to break away from minority governance.  Now, by apathy, we are drifting right back into it.

The Grandfathers of the Nation 

Honored, Respected, But Wrong About Today

Few leaders have shaped modern Bahamian democracy more than Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis—affectionately known as “Daddy”—and former Prime Minister Hubert Alexander Ingraham, the nation’s “Papa.”  They governed in a time when Bahamians turned out in large numbers, when the civic spirit was alive, when Majority Rule felt like an inheritance that could never be lost.

Their leadership deserves respect.  But respectfully, they are applying yesterday’s confidence to today’s crisis.

Papa Ingraham recently said, “You can’t steal an election in The Bahamas.”  Daddy Davis has projected similar assurance, confident that all is steady; that all is well.

But the numbers tell a different story.

With 4,000 voters staying home and only 25% of the electorate determining a parliamentary seat, it is clear that everything is not fine.  Elections today are not being stolen by corruption, they are being stolen by apathy.

The people are not being silenced.  The people are silencing themselves.  That is a threat unlike anything our national fathers ever had to confront.

The 25% Problem and The Quiet Collapse of Majority Rule

In Golden Isles, a candidate did not need half the votes to win.  They only needed a quarter.

Imagine four people sitting at a table, and only one person deciding whether the other three get to eat.  That is not democracy.  That is Minority Rule by default, disguised in the shell of a Majority Rule system.

Apathy made the decision.  Apathy filled the seat.  Apathy now shapes our future more than the electorate does.

If nothing changes, apathy will steal the 2026 General Election—boldly, openly, and without resistance.

The Biblical Consequence of Not Showing Up

Exodus 20:12 instructs us: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God gives you.”

This is more than a household command.  It is a national one.

Our mothers and fathers, the generation who delivered Majority Rule paid a price so that the many could decide.  But when thousands stay home and a minority chooses for the majority, we dishonor that sacrifice.  We weaken the foundation they built.  We shorten the lifespan of the society they secured.  Not by curse, but by consequence.

No nation survives when its people stop showing up for it.

The Bahamas Calls Itself a Christian Nation.  But Where Is Our Discipline?

Every Bahamian child knows this line: “Get ready—you're going to church.”  Church was not optional.  It was discipline, Duty and Expectation.  That same discipline is now needed in our democracy.

Voting must become cultural again.  Voting must become expected.  Voting must become a mandate of service, rooted in the same values that shaped us in church.

A democracy cannot stand on 25%, and a nation cannot survive on silence.

A Call to the Pastors of the Nation

When nations face danger, their spiritual leaders must speak, not to endorse parties, but to awaken responsibility.  Isaiah 58:1 says: “Cry aloud, spare not.”

This is such a moment.  Pastors must call on Daddy, Papa, and all political leaders to stand together, not in competition, but in unity before an election date is set, and address this crisis at its root.

This is not politics.  This is stewardship.

The Path Forward: Restore Majority Rule in Practice, Not Just in Memory

If we want the Bahamas to remain a nation governed by the many, not the few, we must modernize and reinforce our democratic practices.

1. Stream the Vote

Let every Bahamian watch the process in real time.  Transparency builds trust.  Trust builds turnout.  Turnout restores Majority Rule.

2. National Civic Duty Day

A once-every-five-year paid holiday for voting.  A day dedicated to civic responsibility, just as Sundays were dedicated to church.  A day that transforms voting from an inconvenience into an expectation.

Make voting a habit. Make voting a duty.  Make voting Bahamian.

The Grandchildren Must Grow Up, and show Up

Here is the truth: We are the grandchildren of Majority Rule.  We didn’t march for it.  We didn’t fight for it.  But we inherited it.

And now it is slipping, not because someone took it, but because we have stopped showing up to protect it.

If we want a Bahamas worthy of the next generation, and if we want a future we can proudly claim there is only one path forward:

We must grow up.  We must stand up.  We must show up now.

Our vote is not merely a right - it is our inheritance.  It is the last piece of power placed directly into our hands by the generation that fought before us.

Every time we stay home, we hand that inheritance away.

Our grandparents carried this country.  Daddy and Papa fought their battles.  Now it’s our turn.

No more waiting.  No more watching.  No more wishing someone older would fix what is now ours to repair.

Grow up, stand up, and show up.  This is our generation’s responsibility - our generation’s Majority Rule moment.

Final Call: 

Reject the Minority Mindset and restore the Bahamian Majority.

Apathy is winning.  Apathy is shrinking our democracy.  Apathy is reversing what our ancestors built.

But we can stop this.  We have the duty, we have the power, and we have the moment - for our fathers, mothers, children; and for the future of The Bahamas.

The Bahamas will belong to all Bahamians, but only if all Bahamians show up.

Source / Comment

..."apathy and a weak public opinion have led to the present unhappy and undesirable state of affairs in The Bahamas

Paul Adderley's view of court sentences

tribune242 editorial




INSTEAD OF assisting the police in crime solving, many Bahamians like to sit back and fingerpoint, blaming one or other political party for its cause.

While crime and its root causes are complex, Prime Minister Ingraham told House members last week that society cannot expect change if it continues to accept the practice of politicians receiving gifts from criminals to support an election. During the last two general elections, he said, there were claims that some politicians took money and gifts from drug dealers and other disreputable characters. We can add that no matter how hard these politicians might deny these claims, these disreputable characters, proud of their new found importance, don't mind chatting with reporters about their generosity to their "friends" in high places.

It's fairly easy to chart the source and escalation of crime through the columns of The Tribune.

Serious crime started in the sixties with politics. Suddenly Bahamians denied each other the democratic right of free speech, association and security. The advent of the PLP's "goon" squads at political rallies, escalating into burning of property, injury of citizens and general mayhem, started the ball rolling, followed in the seventies and eighties by the advent of the drug traffickers, fast boats, retaliatory killings, and a general breakdown of all the rules that held a Christian society together. Fast money was a badge of success and in schools some children expressed their dreams in schoolroom essays of one day following a family member into the drug trade.

The 1984 Commission of Inquiry summarised the corruption that had society in its grip --a corruption that had infiltrated even to the ministerial level of government and a "drug trade that caused persons to 'wink their eyes' or look the other way." It also left us with a Prime Minister who - according to the Minority Report of the inquiry into drug transshipment -- "did not exercise sufficient care to preclude the possibility of drug-related funds reaching his bank account or being applied for his benefit."

We recall the lone voice of then Assistant Police Commissioner Paul Thompson who predicted the very murder that we see on our streets today if society did not come to grips with the reality of those times.

In 1981-- 30 years ago -- then Attorney General Paul Adderley complained of the leniency with which drug offenders were being dealt with by the courts. His was the same complaint that we have today. He felt that the courts were contributing to society's breakdown.

Taking as his theme "Crime and its dirty companion corruption," Mr Adderley, in addressing the House on the appointment of a select committee to investigate criminal activities, took a dim view of the decision of some Supreme Court judges to allow probation for persons who had been convicted of armed robbery and other serious offences. As for the magistrates he wanted to know what they were thinking in their light sentencing of drug dealers.

Mr Adderley reminded the courts that a short time before the legislature had significantly increased the penalty for drug offenders. The prison term, he said, was increased five-fold and the maximum fine was increased twenty-fold.

"So there was no question as to how Parliament wished the court to view the seriousness of the drug offence," said Mr Adderley. "Notwithstanding that fact, that has been persistently ignored by the sentencing practice by the Magistrate's Court.

"The bench in the Magistrate's court," he said, "appears not to be aware of the fact of what the law was amended to. It is not for the bench to ignore the wishes of Parliament."

He recalled a particular case when a man pleaded guilty to more than six offences of armed robbery and was released on probation.

"That is wrong," he thundered. "It is right that it be said in this place (House of Assembly) that that kind of sentencing is bad, is destructive of public confidence in the system, is frustrating to police and totally inconsistent with what ought to be the morality of the community."

Today the situation is even worse -- many rogues are roaming our streets with one or more murder charges pending.

Mr Adderley knew of no way to protect society against that "small minority of persons who are terrorising the Bahamian community, except by long terms of imprisonment."

Mr Adderley was also harsh on Bahamian lawyers, who, he said, had neither a good nor high reputation. His views are interesting. We shall let Mr Adderley vent fully on them in this column tomorrow. Our readers know that nothing has improved with time, although we are confident that we have an Attorney General's office manned by lawyers fully aware of the problem who are trying to do something about it and a government that has vowed to amend the Bail Act.

We can only agree with the Commission of Inquiry's report of 27 years ago that "apathy and a weak public opinion have led to the present unhappy and undesirable state of affairs in the nation."

So don't send to inquire as to who is to blame for the country's crime. It is you, Mr Joe Q. Public. And no one can improve society's lot until Mr and Mrs Joe Q. Public bestir themselves and assist the police force with information to help fight the crime.

June 07, 2011

tribune242 editorial