Bahamian Third Parties are not Viable

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

It was not at all surprising that the Coalition for Democratic Reform folded its tent last week. The party was wiped out in the last general election and when its founding leader went back to the PLP recently it was obvious that yet another attempt at establishing a viable third party in the Bahamas would fail, like all the others.

It is easy to start a political party. In a democracy like ours any group of citizens can do it. They get together, draw up a constitution and a platform, elect officers and they are in business. In the Bahamas the press will gladly afford their public pronouncements and activities prominence as if they were an established national party.

The Europeans are particularly good at starting parties, especially the French and the Italians. It was said that any time three Frenchmen got together to talk politics that would be the beginning of another party.

What is not so easy is to establish a party by organizing nationally and getting a foothold in parliament. Even the ones that start out with a member, or members, already in parliament have no guarantee of survival. In this category the CDR follows Sir Etienne Dupuch’s Bahamas Democratic League and Paul Adderley’s National Democratic Party.

Perhaps the most remarkable story of party organization in the Bahamas was that of the PLP in 1953. Almost single-handedly, the late Henry M. Taylor established branches throughout the islands and kept in touch with them mainly through the instrumentality of an old typewriter and a manual Gestetner machine that churned out circular letters.

Some of these letters disappeared in the postal system as the powerful Old Guard and its minions caught on to what was happening; even Her Majesty’s mail was not beyond their reach in those days. But Sir Henry, assisted by volunteers who came in the afternoons to stuff envelopes, persisted.

More important than Sir Henry’s dedicated efforts was a confluence of events that made the Bahamas ripe for the establishment and growth of a political party with popular appeal across the nation.

Black Bahamians were becoming more agitated over racial discrimination and that was exacerbated by the banning of the movie No Way Out starring Sidney Poitier; Sir Etienne fired the imagination of black Bahamians when he moved his anti-discrimination resolution in the House of Assembly in 1956, and, of course, there was the general strike of 1958, the greatest mass protest in the country’s history.

There had been many outstanding black politicians in the past but in the 1950s a new cadre of younger and more militant leaders was emerging. Among them were Lynden Pindling, Cecil Wallace Whitfield and Randol Fawkes.

The new black leadership abandoned the old politics of compromise, collaboration and extracting concessions. They were determined to remove the intransigent Old Guard from power. The first elected members of the PLP took their seats in 1956.

In debating the future of third parties in the Bahamas, some have pointed to the FNM as an example of a third party which achieved national status and permanence. The facts do not offer much support for this as the circumstances at the time were unique and not likely to occur again.

After the 1967 and 1968 general elections, the political division in the House of Assembly was clearly along racial lines and there was a good chance the UBP would have been wiped out altogether. In any event, the time had come to end racial politics.

A few enlightened and perceptive members of the UBP, led by Geoffrey Johnstone, understood this. So when in 1970 a bloc of parliamentary members of the PLP – the Dissident Eight -- voted no confidence in their leader and were suspended from the party, Sir Geoffrey proposed the dissolution of the UBP and turning over the responsibility for opposition to the Eight.

After all, this was not a minor parliamentary defection and the Eight could not credibly be accused of being Uncle Toms. Some of them had been at the centre of a bitter, uncompromising and costly struggle against the Old Guard. Indeed, one politician who had earlier left the PLP was convinced at the time that the party had lost its soul. Maybe he had a point.

So in 1971 a new political party -- the FNM -- was formed and assumed the role of opposition, not third party. After a disastrous splintering in 1977, the FNM was reunified in time for the 1982 election and has remained in parliament until now.

Incidentally, the dissolution of the UBP and formation of the FNM has been inaccurately defined as a merger, and the same thing is being done now with regard to the CDR. In spite of the fact that former members of the CDR have joined the FNM individually, some sections of the press still refer to it as a merger.

In the case of the UBP, there can be no question that Sir Geoffrey and his colleagues kept their promise to dissolve the party even though some of his die-hard members did not like the idea and had great difficulty accommodating themselves to the new reality in Bahamian politics.

It may be of interest to note that while Sir Geoffrey and his supporters fulfilled their promise never to run for political office in the Bahamas again, it was one or two of the die-hards who insisted on staying!

In the case of the CDR it appears that there are some who also do not agree with what the executives have done and plan to continue. If that happens they may carry the name but it will be a far different animal with even less chance of becoming a national party.

What is important is that the deck has now been cleared – as far as that is ever possible in politics – for a straight fight between the PLP and the FNM in the next election. There will be candidates from other small parties, of course, and independents as well, but circumstances would seem to indicate that few, if any, of them will survive.

The former members of the CDR who have joined the FNM have got the better part because their credibility is intact and they can still do what they intended to do in the first place when they left the PLP.

Like the Dissident Eight, they were disillusioned and wanted to help bring better government to the Bahamas. So they did not go back. Unlike the Dissident Eight, they may not have to wait so long!

The former CDR leader, Dr. Bernard Nottage, is not in as good a position. His going back to the PLP is unlikely to make any fundamental difference with that party, as others who went back years ago discovered in the long run.

Dr. Nottage will enjoy the power and glory for the time being but he may have seriously damaged his credibility with many people who had great confidence in him. They will question why he abandoned his colleagues and went back. They will also question why he left the PLP and started the CDR in the first place.

The answer may be found in an item on Bahamas Uncensored, a website that reflects the thinking of his PLP ministerial colleague Fred Mitchell, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In November 2005, BU carried an item headed “Nottage Is Back”. It gave a brief history of “retired Bahamian political parties” and said all of them failed to fire the imagination of the country except as a means of creating public debate. Then BU added:

“It was not quite a mistake because sometimes individuals have to take marketing decisions to protect their futures. Dr. Nottage certainly joins Paul Adderley and Fred Mitchell in that category. Without their own individual party political efforts, they would not have seen the boost in their political careers that ultimately took them to the very top.”

What a callous and cynical attitude! Certain individuals start political parties only as a marketing tactic to boost their careers and protect their futures. At the right moment they simply abandon their sincere followers and their parties so they can secure positions at the very top.

Incredible!