The PLP’s Great Dilemma

by Simon

•Simon is a young Bahamian with things on his mind who wishes to remain anonymous. His column 'Front Porch' is published every Tuesday in the Nassau Guardian. He can be reached at frontporchguardian@gmail.com.

The PLP is in a classic bind that might be posed as a question:  How to wrest the party from the grasp of a failed leader who, in all likelihood, will lead the party to defeat at the next general election, yet who may be unbeatable as Leader?

This bind is emblematic of not only Mr. Christie’s problems, but also of the weakness of his opponents, the weak standing of a number of the party’s potential Leaders with the general public, as well as the dysfunction in a party that enjoyed an overwhelming parliamentary majority just two and a half years ago.

In the run up to its long-awaited national convention, various Leaders-in-waiting are attempting to answer this question through their own stratagems and calculations.  

So nervous have most of Mr. Christie’s potential and plausible adversaries been about challenging the former Prime Minister, that only the neophyte and unserious Paul Moss had dared to mount a bid until the very last moment.  At a 56th birthday event, Fred Mitchell equivocated, again postponing definitive word on his own bid for Leader.

Philip “Brave” Davis and Obie Wilchcombe, who have made no secret of wanting to succeed Mr. Christie, have calculated that it may be best not to tackle him head-on, enduring the wrath of his supporters, potential failure and. in an organization that bills itself as the party of second chances, possibly no second chance to run again for Leader.  So they have decided, for now, to run for the second spot.

MULLING

But there is someone who may be mulling a different answer than the aforementioned, someone who may decide that this is his second and possibly last chance to run for Leader.  It is rumoured that B. J. Nottage may believe that Mr. Christie is vulnerable and beatable.  If he runs, this will be a rematch of an earlier ugly and brutal fight which led to Dr. Nottage’s departure from the PLP.

If he wins, this may signal the beginning of a shift in the PLP.  But whether the former Leader of the Coalition for Democratic Reform can successfully bring those reformist instincts to a party that has been resistant to genuine internal reform, remains an open question.

But, none of these men should start measuring the drapes in the office of the Leader of the Opposition.  Defeating a sitting Leader is rare, and Mr. Christie still enjoys significant party support, especially among Stalwart Councillors.

Still, Mr. Christie continues to remind his opponents as to why they may want to run against him, weekly providing them with fresh ammunition through chest- thumping interviews promising mortal combat and recrimination, and through a variety of head-scratching actions and pandering that have further diminished his credibility among independent voters and an increasing number of PLPs.

In interviews with Jerome Sawyer on ZNS and with Unscripted, posted online at USTREAM, Mr. Christie has come across as delusional.  The man who could not or would not discipline his colleagues as Prime Minister, when he had significant carrots and sticks at his disposal, is now, as Opposition Leader, resorting to throwing verbal sticks and stones at his actual opponents and potential rivals.

Mr. Christie does not seem to realize that most people long ago concluded that he is a paper tiger, even more so now, with few weapons in his arsenal to realize his bizarre public threats to deal forcefully with those who oppose him, a list that is getting longer by the day.  His interviews may have boomeranged, having the opposite effect of what he intended.

FORGOTTEN

In quoting Niccoló Machiavelli’s advice to the Prince on how to deal with enemies, Mr. Christie seems to have forgotten that he is a deposed prince, having already squandered advantages which should have led to re-election, including an impressive parliamentary majority, a generally healthy economy, the unpopularity in some quarters of the man who unseated him, and the tendency of voters to give a party at least two terms in office.

Mr. Christie continues to breezily brush aside critics and history by claiming that he is the man to “handle” Hubert Ingraham.  He wants voters to believe that despite his failure to defeat his former law partner when he was Prime Minister from 2002 to 2007, that he can now defeat the current occupant of that office from his weaker position in opposition.  

His promise to mount an effective election campaign against the FNM after doling out consequences to those in his own party who oppose him would be a remarkable feat for a more able prince who had actually digested and acted on Machiavelli’s advice when in office.  After all, the political philosopher’s star prince would not have lost office in the first place with such extraordinary advantages.

In his October 4th Unscripted interview Mr. Christie boasted:  “There is nobody more qualified than Perry Gladstone Christie to introduce new innovations to make the paradigm shifts that are necessary. My past indicates that.” The emphases are mine.

Putting aside the debate over such a bold claim with regard to his policies and programmes, sadly, in and back out of office, Mr. Christie has demonstrated a stunning and almost tragic inability to innovate or shift paradigms with regard to the skills, traits and actions necessary for a successful prime ministership.

For many, who genuinely hoped for more, Mr. Christie is a disappointment, He seems incapable of growing as a national leader, with limited capacity to unshackle or loosen those Achilles heels preventing him from climbing to greater heights.

The 2012 election is not the 2002 contest when voters were willing to give Mr. Christie a chance to see what he could do as Prime Minister.  To wit, voters have rendered a mostly negative judgment on his tenure in office, and are increasingly concerned about some of his more questionable actions in opposition.

COMICAL

His bluster about reconsidering the new port is almost comical.  Does he propose to dig it up after it’s built?  More serious and worrisome, was his appearance with other colleagues at the trial of former Senator Pleasant Bridgewater.  We must leave her innocence or guilt to a jury.  If Mr. Christie wishes to show his concern for Ms. Bridgewater, he should have done so in a more appropriate manner.

Such an appearance demonstrated a lack of judgment and decorum. It was a questionable act by a former Prime Minister and current Leader of the Opposition that could be viewed as a lack of impartiality and necessary remove from a highly publicized and internationally watched case still awaiting the jury’s decision.  Assuming that Mr. Christie would have not made such an appearance as Prime Minister, he should not have done it as Leader of the Opposition.

While it may have played well with some elements of his party on the eve of its national convention, it chipped away even more of Mr. Christie’s ever diminishing credibility with some swing voters.  

In the aforementioned Unscripted interview, an increasingly embattled Perry Christie advised: “Moving forward, moving forward, the people of the country will have to make a decision as to what’s flam and what’s not, what’s just public relations.”  He noted that they will have to look at the substance of things.

But before then, the upcoming PLP convention will have to render a similar judgment on Mr. Christie.  If they decide to remove Mr. Christie, the majority of the party will have concluded that its current Leader is not the best person to lead it into the next general election or serve as Prime Minister.  It will be an ignominious end to his political career.

If the PLP retains Mr. Christie, the party will find out whether the majority of voters have significantly changed their minds about whether Mr. Christie can make the changes in his party and character necessary to once again become Prime Minister and, if returned to office, govern with discipline and decisiveness.  As they proceed, Mr. Christie and his party, as well as others in the political arena, may wish to take to heart this advice from Machiavelli found in The Discourses:

“That we cannot thus change at will is due to two causes; the one is the impossibility of resisting the natural bent of our characters; and the other is the difficulty of persuading ourselves, after having been accustomed to success by a certain mode of proceeding, that any other can succeed as well.”

Comments

[Rick Lowe]

How about a preview of the FNM'S upcoming convention and their dilemma when Mr. Ingraham decides to move on?