The Party's Over -- and Change is Good for Bahamian Democracy

by Larry Smith

"That a people get the kind of government they deserve is almost axiomatic...Until people awaken to their own responsibilities, they will not have a responsible government." -- Rev H. W. Brown, 1946

Well, the three-week party is finally over.

In a few hours we'll know whether the incumbents have been turfed out after five years. And if so we should celebrate that, and make sure it is repeated every five years. That seems to be the only way to control our political class in the public interest.

So what about the cry that "one good term deserves another?"

Well, consider the Ingraham government. Their first term (1992-1997) rescued a tanking economy, restored a degree of accountability to the political system and expanded democracy. The achievements of the second term (1997-2002) were much weaker, and it is likely that a third term would have recreated the problems that Ingraham tried to fix in 1992.

Since there is so little difference between the FNM and PLP ideologically, changing horses after a single term will have virtually no effect on development plans. In fact, many of the projects and programmes touted by the Christie administration were actually initiated during the Ingraham administration.

They include the solid waste disposal project begun in 1999, the co-operative sector strengthening project, the 2001 road-building project, the health sector strengthening project begun in 2000, the expansion of pre-schools and modernisation of education, and the Family Islands water project, circa 1998.

And should Ingraham replace Christie tomorrow, he will continue programmes started under the PLP government - including the sustainable tourism project launched in 2005, the land use administration project begun in 2004, the coastal zone master plan begun in 2003, the national youth-at-risk strategy and the ongoing enhancement of public sector planning capabilities.

Let's take just one example. Environmental protection legislation has been in the works for years and is expected to be passed early in the next government (no matter who runs it). It is aimed at underpinning a department of the environmental that both the FNM and PLP have been seeking to implement ever since the BEST Commission was set up in 1994. And the BEST Commission evolved from an inter-ministerial committee created by the Pindling regime.

All of these multi-year programmes (and others) are financed by the Inter-American Development Bank - to the tune of more than $150 million in fact - and they don't simply expire when the government changes. Plus, as we all know, the civil service is with us forever.

In other words, continuity is hardly an issue here.

As you might expect, these programmes feature prominently in each party's platform, although they are not identified as such and different wording is used to describe them. The IADB consults with each incoming government on development projects and conducts periodic evaluations of their implementation, but it is hard to say who plays the leading role - the lender or the borrower.

In any case, our institutional deficiencies are such that many plans are poorly implemented - such as the $33 million solid waste disposal project that was supposed to build landfills on 10 islands to tackle the problem of indiscriminate dumping. After almost a decade (under two governments) it has yet to be completed, and the bank has threatened to cancel its funding.

So we can be fairly certain that our lack of capacity, innate conservatism, reliance on external economic inputs, and sheer idleness will ensure that neither the FNM nor the PLP will introduce radical changes that could threaten our way of life. In fact, it is far more likely that poor governance and corruption will generate the conditions we all fear.

There is, therefore, no real need to concern ourselves with giving any government a second term. Vote them out - and pay attention over the next five years so you can vote the next lot out. Believe me, it makes perfect sense. It is not a tough call.

But let's look at a contrary view. The conspiracy theorists are hard at work this election for obvious reasons, but is there really any chance that a bunch of dead, white, kitchen-table racists will take over the country and run it as their private business again?

You could easily say the same thing about the Sunshine Boys conglomerate, or the disgraced Old PLP fixers (like George Smith, Baltron Bethel and Calsey Johnson), who are in a far better position to manipulate our mostly black electorate.

Here's the two best reasons to vote them out (no matter who they are): to protect and promote our fledgling democracy, and to ensure good governance. We all should know by now what democracy means - and a freedom of information act should be the first order of business for any party that wants my vote.

Governance refers to the way we conduct public affairs, manage public resources, and protect civil rights. Good governance achieves these goals transparently under the rule of law in a way that avoids abuse and corruption.

There's an apt phrase that conveys exactly what I am talking about here: the insolence of office. That's what you get when you leave people in power. From regular folks like you and me, within just a few years they transform into little gods - which is quite an achievement in most cases.

It's not just Bahamian politicos who suffer from such hubris (that 'insolence of office' phrase wasn't coined by me, for example, it came from an English writer). But the transformation seems to happen fast and easy in our slack, insular society.

Some of our more thoughtful commentators complain that Bahamian political discourse is dominated by superficiality. They say our politicos often fail to tackle fundamental problems and resort to cheap populism, with issues always at the margin. As one business analyst recently put it: "Instead of talking about re-engineering, the conversation is about changing the menus in the canteen."

And as the early PLP firebrand (and current FNM campaigner) Sir Arthur Foulkes said in a recent column, "There was a genuine hope in 2002 that the so-called new PLP led by Perry Christie would put behind it the bad old days and further advance the democratic culture established during the FNM’s term in office. "

Well, that was certainly my hope - as someone who had considered the option of emigration during the darkest days of the Pindling regime. And at first, the attitude of the new "fresh wind" Christie government was indeed friendly and accommodating. Lots of public commissions were formed and the watchword was "consultation".

Believe it or not, when I helped run the Nassau Guardian in 2003 I actually received calls from government appointees inviting me to contact them for information. But those days are long gone.

Now, public officials are inevitably unavailable to the press - even to discuss technical issues. The House public accounts committee has been emasculated, business is done behind closed doors and ministers don't bother to answer questions in parliament or respond to controversies in public. It took a mere five years for that to happen - think what will happen in the next five years.

And here we are talking about election rigging again - something that hasn't been an issue since the notorious 1987 general election, when the Pindling regime tried every trick in the book to retain power following damaging disclosures about drug trafficking and official corruption. Accusations of vote buying go right back to those hated UBP days that our erstwhile black nationalists like to talk about so much.

You may think that democracy and governance are not that important compared to the social problems we face, but they provide the necessary structure for resolving those problems. We need a strong, independent and competent judiciary because only the courts can safeguard us from the power of politicians and the police. And we need to hold the feet of our political leaders to the fire, or they will take it as license to do what they please.

These are not just academic issues. Our courts resolve commercial disputes, criminal matters, matrimonial issues and constitutional crises. Justice must be fair, it must be fearless, and it must be timely. In the last resort this is what keeps society stable and viable. If, by laziness or incompetence or otherwise, we allow the justice system to decline then we will forfeit this safeguard.

There is a clear choice here: either our politicians, public servants and judiciary uphold the rule of law, or, like termites, they will destroy the very structure of our nation. The best way to force them to toe the line is at the polls - every five years.

And lastly, the PLP likes to say that the FNM let "special interests" run the country, but what more of a special interest can you imagine than the Colombian drug cartels that the PLP sold out to in the 1980s?

Every government develops special interests and powers behind the scenes. If you want to fight that tendency, the best way is to vote them out - as we did in 1967, 1992 and 2002. Only don't leave it so long this time.

Comments

[nicob]

Change at the political level may well be good. However, without a transformation in the public service -- which is terminal -- it is a superficial change only. Public servants can execute plans very slowly, but they can block plans very quickly and efficiently, and the public service as it is currently constituted is a force for conservatism and stagnation.

And no government has had the balls to tackle the problem head-on. Perhaps if we voted them out every five years, then maybe, with nothing to lose, the politicians will bite the bullet and turn the public service into a place where merit and efficiency and nationalism are rewarded, rather than a place where one needs to be a sycophant or a foot-kisser to get ahead.

[larry smith]

Quite. But that is a story for another time.

And aren't you a civil servant?

[nicob]

Civil? Not particularly. Servant? ... of the Bahamian people, I hope, not so much its politicians.

Yes, I am technically a civil servant — by which I mean I have received a letter from the Governor-General appointing me to the service.

I am, however, not temperamentally a civil servant. There is too much waste and bureaucracy in the system.

I speak from experience. Trust me. The system needs to be changed. I've said it before: it was designed to administer a colony, not to run an independent nation. It needs to be dismantled and built up again from the ground. This, of course, will be difficult, perhaps next to impossible, because the very people who have the authority to do that are the people who will be most affected by the change.