by Larry Smith
The phrase "third rail" is an American political metaphor for an idea so charged that any politician who dares touch it will inevitably suffer the consequences.
Stepping on the third rail of an electric railway usually results in electrocution. Many consider the third rail in Bahamian politics to be a commitment to a new political party, and some feel that Bamboo Town MP Branville McCartney has just touched that deadly conduit.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First we have to consider why political parties exist at all.
They are, of course, linked to the extension of democracy. In The Bahamas, political parties evolved as voting restrictions based on property, race and gender were eliminated over the first half of the 20th century.
The question at hand is, why do some political parties wither and die while others take root and flourish? To find the answer we have to look at the historical context.
Until the mid-20th century, the Bahamas was run by a kitchen-table cabal of white merchants and lawyers under British overlordship. The Progressive Liberal Party was formed in 1953 to reform that regime, satisfying an unmet political need. Five years later, the regime organized the United Bahamian Party.
At about the same time, Tribune publisher Etienne Dupuch and his brother Eugene, both independent House members, formed the Bahamas Democratic League. But their mildly reformist programme was upstaged by the more assertive PLP. Eugene eventually joined the UBP while Etienne quit politics altogether.
In 1965, a conservative faction (led by Paul Adderley and Orville Turnquest) split with the PLP, constituting itself as the National Democratic Party, but also failed to gain traction at the polls. It took almost a generation (and several electoral reforms) before the PLP won the government in 1967, under Lynden Pindling.
The Free National Movement was born following another major split in the PLP in 1970 (led by senior cabinet ministers like Cecil Wallace-Whitfield and Arthur Foulkes). By this time, the UBP had been reduced to a rump and the FNM assumed the role of opposition - not third party - but it too initially failed at the polls. It took another generation - and several bitter factional splits - before the FNM won the government in 1992, under Hubert Ingraham.
The Vanguard Party was formed in the early 1970s by students and intellectuals as a radical opposition group. Despite the portentous name and indirect support from Castro's Cuba, it's Marxist platform never made any headway at the polls, and it faded into oblivion by the 1980s.
In 1998 the PLP suffered another body blow when Dr Bernard Nottage, after losing a leadership bid, resigned in a huff to form the Coalition for Democratic Reform. This was the most significant attempt at a new party since the 1970s, but the CDR was a total failure in the 2002 election and disbanded soon after, with Nottage returning to the PLP.
Despite the CDR's wipe-out, the 2002 poll was the electoral high point for candidates not drawn from the two major parties. Independents and small parties collectively won 7.5 per cent of the vote, but that was largely because the PLP had refrained from opposing several ex-FNM incumbents.
There was much talk of a surge in support for new parties at the time of the Elizabeth bye-election last year. But the 12-year-old Bahamas Democratic Movement, the newly-formed National Development Party and the idiosyncratic Workers Party won only 209 votes collectively - about 4 per cent of the total cast. This led Dr Andre Rollins, the losing NDP candidate, to join the PLP.
What about financing? In the 1950s the PLP was able to establish itself with not much more than a typewriter, a mimeograph machine and the labour of its highly motivated supporters, but big money is critical to the success of a major political organization today. And how can a new party with little chance of forming a government ever hope to generate enough funding?
According to Carl Bethel, the 41 FNM candidates in 2007 received about $30,000 each for their constituency campaigns. That's about $1.2 million - and it doesn't take account of general advertising, printing, legal, travel and other costs. So it is clear that elections cost each major party several million dollars.
On top of this, the logistics of forming and maintaining constituency branches, recruiting good candidates, and fighting gruelling campaigns are major hurdles for any new organization led by part-time politicos to overcome.
What about the various personalities who have tried to break the mould of two-party politics over the past 60 years? Were they on the right side of history, or did they just have overblown egos?
As longtime political observer Pericles Maillis put it to me: "Some men are born great, and some have greatness thrust upon them, but here in the Bahamas there are many who are simply carried by the tide, and by the efforts of others. They are accidents of history with huge egos. And history will judge them by their fruits."
The plain fact is that the only successful new party in recent history was the FNM, which split the PLP's parliamentary bloc to become the main opposition. By all accounts, Whitfield had a burning ambition to lead, but he was also able to clearly articulate the issues, which played a crucial role in bringing about a long-term realignment of Bahamian politics, despite his limited personal success at the polls.
More to the point, he took advantage of the opportunity presented by the collapse of the UBP to bring about a reconciliation of historical divisions. His predecessors who formed the NDP in 1965 were equally ambitious and intelligent, but clearly on the wrong side of history. As a result, Turnquest and Adderley both vanished into the wilderness until re-emerging in the 1970s to join the mainstream parties.
The CDR (whose website still exists at www.hannaian.com/cdr) was organized principally around Nottage, but focused on many of the issues that still resonate today, promising to reform education, expand social welfare, diversify the economy, empower Bahamians and improve governance. Despite this creditable effort, all of the CDR's key figures were eventually re-absorbed into the mainstream parties.
Finally, there was the split in the FNM that occurred just prior to the 2002 election. After losing a leadership battle, senior cabinet ministers Tennyson Wells and Pierre Dupuch, together with Long Island representative Larry Cartwright, ran as independents supported by the PLP. They won, but Wells lost in 2007, while Dupuch retired from politics, and Cartwright returned to the FNM. They had no impact on our political evolution.
So what makes Branville McCartney and others think the time is right today for a new political realignment?
Well, according to National Development Party hopeful Lynden Nairn, "People have lost confidence in both mainstream leaders, but are still willing to vote for them because there is no alternative. We are at the point where we are disgusted and desirous of change, and that cry is giving birth to a third party for an alternative government."
He recognizes the difficulties. "This is a weight I would rather not shoulder, but I can't help myself. i am trapped on this road. If either of the main parties would become more democratic and demonstrate genuine concern for the country, I would join immediately."
The NDP, the BDM and others are currently engaged in talks with McCartney about an amalgamation of some kind to fight the next election. "It will be hard but I think we can make a dent at the polls," Nairn said. "There are legitimate questions about financing, but I think the money will come. I think people get it."
In a Facebook exchange with McCartney before his resignation from the FNM last week, he told me about a comprehensive plan he had developed to deal with illegal immigration, which the government refused to address. The implication was that this was his reason for leaving the cabinet a year ago. But government insiders say his only plan was to harass the Haitian community and ensure he got good publicity doing it.
And since then he has had nothing to say on current affairs or policy issues - extraordinary for a politician contemplating a bid for national leadership with only a brief electoral track record to run on.
McCartney won his seat on a platform that called explicitly for transforming ZNS and privatizing Bahamasair, BEC and BTC in order to reduce government's footprint in the economy and the endless public subsidies and investments required for these state corporations.
But aside from portraying himself as a potential saviour in his speech during the BTC debate, McCartney had nothing to offer beyond voting against privatization while dropping the vague buzz word "empowerment" at every turn. This is not a good start for the leader of a putative third force that is set to take the country by storm.
In this context, a scene from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar springs to mind, when Marullus asks the people of Rome why they are celebrating the arrival of Caesar: "Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home? What tributaries follow him to Rome, to grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?"
Meanwhile, rumours of an early election continue to swirl. The only rationale for such a strategy - unless you think the economy is getting worse - is to catch the opposition off guard. And since the PLP seems relatively well-prepared at this point, the suggestion is that the threat in question is a potential new party or united front. But a snap election is a very unlikely prospect.
The prime minister has said he will close the register in July, after which it will take a month to perfect. Then the boundaries commission has to be appointed, and it will take time to redraw the constituencies. Then the electorate needs at least 30 days notice. And it takes 60 days to run an effective campaign. There are many other practical and political considerations that factor into the decision on a polling date.
A snap election hasn't been called in the Bahamas since 1968 - when the death of PLP MP Uriah McPhee on February 16 led then Prime Minister Lynden Pindling to go to the polls on April 10 to avoid a hung parliament. That decision resulted in a landslide win for the PLP - a 20 per cent voting swing in the 15 months that had elapsed since the 1967 election.
The only other time an early election was called was in 1971, when Pindling announced he would bring the 1973 election forward by six months (to September 1972) in order to accommodate the government's independence timetable. The PLP won by a landslide in that instance too.
The bottom line is that it's easy to talk about a new party, but the logistical issues involved with such a project are daunting - and we probably don't have enough attractive, willing and capable candidates to support a multi-party system anyway. More importantly, the objective conditions have to be in place for a breakthrough to occur, and the issues have to be clearly articulated.
It would be foolhardy to ignore the growing public disenchantment over critical issues like crime, education, jobs, illegal immigration and national development. Clearly, there is a lot of hard work that needs to be done to improve our society, and clearly no one leader or group has all the answers. But there are also no easy shortcuts.
"I take very seriously the level of anxiety and the interest of the electorate in something new," one MP told me. "You can't be dismissive of that without being arrogant. But there's a lot of shallow thinking out there. Young politicians know that being strident gets them a lot of publicity - and then they start to hear voices."
As for those objective conditions, it may be true that a high percentage of the population is looking for new leadership and new ideas, but it has to be the right leaders and the right policies. A vision for change can't succeed if it is based on resentment or an exaggerated view of one's own destiny.
Currently, we have the PLP and the FNM, and some grey areas in between. The question is, does anyone out there have the ability to bring those grey areas into sharper focus just a few months before an election?
At about the same time, Tribune publisher Etienne Dupuch and his brother Eugene, both independent House members, formed the Bahamas Democratic League. But their mildly reformist programme was upstaged by the more assertive PLP. Eugene eventually joined the UBP while Etienne quit politics altogether.
In 1965, a conservative faction (led by Paul Adderley and Orville Turnquest) split with the PLP, constituting itself as the National Democratic Party, but also failed to gain traction at the polls. It took almost a generation (and several electoral reforms) before the PLP won the government in 1967, under Lynden Pindling.
The Free National Movement was born following another major split in the PLP in 1970 (led by senior cabinet ministers like Cecil Wallace-Whitfield and Arthur Foulkes). By this time, the UBP had been reduced to a rump and the FNM assumed the role of opposition - not third party - but it too initially failed at the polls. It took another generation - and several bitter factional splits - before the FNM won the government in 1992, under Hubert Ingraham.
The Vanguard Party was formed in the early 1970s by students and intellectuals as a radical opposition group. Despite the portentous name and indirect support from Castro's Cuba, it's Marxist platform never made any headway at the polls, and it faded into oblivion by the 1980s.
In 1998 the PLP suffered another body blow when Dr Bernard Nottage, after losing a leadership bid, resigned in a huff to form the Coalition for Democratic Reform. This was the most significant attempt at a new party since the 1970s, but the CDR was a total failure in the 2002 election and disbanded soon after, with Nottage returning to the PLP.
Despite the CDR's wipe-out, the 2002 poll was the electoral high point for candidates not drawn from the two major parties. Independents and small parties collectively won 7.5 per cent of the vote, but that was largely because the PLP had refrained from opposing several ex-FNM incumbents.
There was much talk of a surge in support for new parties at the time of the Elizabeth bye-election last year. But the 12-year-old Bahamas Democratic Movement, the newly-formed National Development Party and the idiosyncratic Workers Party won only 209 votes collectively - about 4 per cent of the total cast. This led Dr Andre Rollins, the losing NDP candidate, to join the PLP.
What about financing? In the 1950s the PLP was able to establish itself with not much more than a typewriter, a mimeograph machine and the labour of its highly motivated supporters, but big money is critical to the success of a major political organization today. And how can a new party with little chance of forming a government ever hope to generate enough funding?
According to Carl Bethel, the 41 FNM candidates in 2007 received about $30,000 each for their constituency campaigns. That's about $1.2 million - and it doesn't take account of general advertising, printing, legal, travel and other costs. So it is clear that elections cost each major party several million dollars.
On top of this, the logistics of forming and maintaining constituency branches, recruiting good candidates, and fighting gruelling campaigns are major hurdles for any new organization led by part-time politicos to overcome.
What about the various personalities who have tried to break the mould of two-party politics over the past 60 years? Were they on the right side of history, or did they just have overblown egos?
As longtime political observer Pericles Maillis put it to me: "Some men are born great, and some have greatness thrust upon them, but here in the Bahamas there are many who are simply carried by the tide, and by the efforts of others. They are accidents of history with huge egos. And history will judge them by their fruits."
The plain fact is that the only successful new party in recent history was the FNM, which split the PLP's parliamentary bloc to become the main opposition. By all accounts, Whitfield had a burning ambition to lead, but he was also able to clearly articulate the issues, which played a crucial role in bringing about a long-term realignment of Bahamian politics, despite his limited personal success at the polls.
More to the point, he took advantage of the opportunity presented by the collapse of the UBP to bring about a reconciliation of historical divisions. His predecessors who formed the NDP in 1965 were equally ambitious and intelligent, but clearly on the wrong side of history. As a result, Turnquest and Adderley both vanished into the wilderness until re-emerging in the 1970s to join the mainstream parties.
The CDR (whose website still exists at www.hannaian.com/cdr) was organized principally around Nottage, but focused on many of the issues that still resonate today, promising to reform education, expand social welfare, diversify the economy, empower Bahamians and improve governance. Despite this creditable effort, all of the CDR's key figures were eventually re-absorbed into the mainstream parties.
Finally, there was the split in the FNM that occurred just prior to the 2002 election. After losing a leadership battle, senior cabinet ministers Tennyson Wells and Pierre Dupuch, together with Long Island representative Larry Cartwright, ran as independents supported by the PLP. They won, but Wells lost in 2007, while Dupuch retired from politics, and Cartwright returned to the FNM. They had no impact on our political evolution.
So what makes Branville McCartney and others think the time is right today for a new political realignment?
Well, according to National Development Party hopeful Lynden Nairn, "People have lost confidence in both mainstream leaders, but are still willing to vote for them because there is no alternative. We are at the point where we are disgusted and desirous of change, and that cry is giving birth to a third party for an alternative government."
He recognizes the difficulties. "This is a weight I would rather not shoulder, but I can't help myself. i am trapped on this road. If either of the main parties would become more democratic and demonstrate genuine concern for the country, I would join immediately."
The NDP, the BDM and others are currently engaged in talks with McCartney about an amalgamation of some kind to fight the next election. "It will be hard but I think we can make a dent at the polls," Nairn said. "There are legitimate questions about financing, but I think the money will come. I think people get it."
In a Facebook exchange with McCartney before his resignation from the FNM last week, he told me about a comprehensive plan he had developed to deal with illegal immigration, which the government refused to address. The implication was that this was his reason for leaving the cabinet a year ago. But government insiders say his only plan was to harass the Haitian community and ensure he got good publicity doing it.
And since then he has had nothing to say on current affairs or policy issues - extraordinary for a politician contemplating a bid for national leadership with only a brief electoral track record to run on.
McCartney won his seat on a platform that called explicitly for transforming ZNS and privatizing Bahamasair, BEC and BTC in order to reduce government's footprint in the economy and the endless public subsidies and investments required for these state corporations.
But aside from portraying himself as a potential saviour in his speech during the BTC debate, McCartney had nothing to offer beyond voting against privatization while dropping the vague buzz word "empowerment" at every turn. This is not a good start for the leader of a putative third force that is set to take the country by storm.
In this context, a scene from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar springs to mind, when Marullus asks the people of Rome why they are celebrating the arrival of Caesar: "Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home? What tributaries follow him to Rome, to grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?"
Meanwhile, rumours of an early election continue to swirl. The only rationale for such a strategy - unless you think the economy is getting worse - is to catch the opposition off guard. And since the PLP seems relatively well-prepared at this point, the suggestion is that the threat in question is a potential new party or united front. But a snap election is a very unlikely prospect.
The prime minister has said he will close the register in July, after which it will take a month to perfect. Then the boundaries commission has to be appointed, and it will take time to redraw the constituencies. Then the electorate needs at least 30 days notice. And it takes 60 days to run an effective campaign. There are many other practical and political considerations that factor into the decision on a polling date.
A snap election hasn't been called in the Bahamas since 1968 - when the death of PLP MP Uriah McPhee on February 16 led then Prime Minister Lynden Pindling to go to the polls on April 10 to avoid a hung parliament. That decision resulted in a landslide win for the PLP - a 20 per cent voting swing in the 15 months that had elapsed since the 1967 election.
The only other time an early election was called was in 1971, when Pindling announced he would bring the 1973 election forward by six months (to September 1972) in order to accommodate the government's independence timetable. The PLP won by a landslide in that instance too.
The bottom line is that it's easy to talk about a new party, but the logistical issues involved with such a project are daunting - and we probably don't have enough attractive, willing and capable candidates to support a multi-party system anyway. More importantly, the objective conditions have to be in place for a breakthrough to occur, and the issues have to be clearly articulated.
It would be foolhardy to ignore the growing public disenchantment over critical issues like crime, education, jobs, illegal immigration and national development. Clearly, there is a lot of hard work that needs to be done to improve our society, and clearly no one leader or group has all the answers. But there are also no easy shortcuts.
"I take very seriously the level of anxiety and the interest of the electorate in something new," one MP told me. "You can't be dismissive of that without being arrogant. But there's a lot of shallow thinking out there. Young politicians know that being strident gets them a lot of publicity - and then they start to hear voices."
As for those objective conditions, it may be true that a high percentage of the population is looking for new leadership and new ideas, but it has to be the right leaders and the right policies. A vision for change can't succeed if it is based on resentment or an exaggerated view of one's own destiny.
Currently, we have the PLP and the FNM, and some grey areas in between. The question is, does anyone out there have the ability to bring those grey areas into sharper focus just a few months before an election?
Opportunity is a sneaky little bastard. He tend to show up when we least expect. Who knows whether this election cycle is prime for a successful third party bid. If the stars do align one of the critical elements needed is that, third parties show up. I will hate to see an alignment(stars) that goes to waste. With that in mind, third parties fight on, opportunity shows up whether you are in the arena or not. If you are there, he will leave something with you and if you are not he takes it with him.
Posted by: E Dieufaite | April 05, 2011 at 11:54 AM
Mr. McCartney's DNA is DOA. You have summed up the history of the third parties in the Bahamas quite well. What is the DOA offering that is significantly different from the other parties? If Mr. McCartney is opposed in his seat by both the FNM and PLP, he will likely lose his deposit as will all other DNA candidates.
Posted by: Victor | April 15, 2011 at 12:38 PM
Very interesting.
Like many others I am sick and tired of the politics in this country, where leaders are petty-minded and think they have a monopoly on common sense and they attack you publicly when you disagree with them.
This is wrong and the sooner we change this attitude the better.
A third party has to start somewhere. Perhaps they will not be successful, but might win enough seats to become a power broker and then perhaps they can hold the government's feet to the fire.
I am disillusioned about how this country is run and would like to see changes before we all lose hope.
Posted by: William Wong | April 18, 2011 at 01:50 PM