Continue reading "The Desperate Need for Change in the Bahamas" »
Continue reading "The Desperate Need for Change in the Bahamas" »
Posted at 02:29 PM in Current Affairs, Politics | Permalink | Comments (1)
by Larry Smith
Continue reading "Will Bahamians Get the Accountability they Voted for?" »
Posted at 09:16 AM in Current Affairs, History, Politics | Permalink | Comments (4)
by Larry Smith
Posted at 06:41 AM in Current Affairs, Politics | Permalink | Comments (1)
by Larry Smith
Shortly before the May 10 general election, former Deputy Prime Minister Philip Davis and retired cabinet minister George Smith both predicted a PLP win.
“I see no reason why we shouldn’t take 30 seats,” Davis said smugly. And according to Smith, the vote would be close, "(but) in the end the PLP will emerge victorious.”
These forecasts required us to accept that the PLP had not lost any support over it’s disreputable five-year term - a stretch by any measure.
I wrote some weeks ago that a clear case could be made that conditions in the country today are very similar to those in 1992. In addition to the PLP's increasingly authoritarian style, back then the country was running out of economic options due to corruption and mismanagement.
I also pointed out that the DNA - which drew over 13,000 votes in the 2012 election - was the biggest unknown quantity that could actually affect this election. If it did not exist, I said, there is no doubt that Christie's PLP would be swept out in a landslide.
Until shortly before the election, the prevailing view was that the DNA would again split the anti-government vote, and bring about a PLP victory that would be disastrous for the country. Many opposition activists and supporters were genuinely distressed over the failure of the FNM and DNA to forge some kind of alliance against the PLP.
Added to this uncertainty factor was the split between FNM leader Hubert Minnis and his former deputy Loretta Butler-Turner. Butler-Turner had been talking to the DNA about an electoral agreement, but what she described as "an anti-establishment alliance" failed to materialise.
But as the election date approached, infighting within the FNM died down and most opposition supporters coalesced around Minnis as the only effective choice. The FNM was also able to put forward many fresh and credible candidates, and the seven rebel MPs became politically irrelevant.
Only Butler-Turner decided to run as an independent in Long Island, which turned out to be a poor decision. She was handily defeated by Adrian Gibson in the ensuing FNM wave and appears to be out of the picture for the medium term at least.
At this writing, the PLP retained only four seats in parliament (Glenys Hanna-Martin in Englerston; Philip Davis in Cat Island, Rum Cay and San Salvador; Chester Cooper in Exuma; and Picewell Forbes in South Andros.
Following Minnis’ swearing in as prime minister on May 11, the big question is who will lead the opposition.
Forbes - a former radio announcer - is a cipher of little substance. Cooper is a successful business executive and political newcomer. Hanna-Martin is the scion of a famous PLP dynasty. And Davis was deputy prime minister in the outgoing government.
Both Hanna-Martin and Davis have been MPs and cabinet ministers since the first Christie administration took office in 2002. At 65 Davis is the senior figure and already had his sights on succeeding Christie as party leader.
But as he is considered an old-line PLP fixer with poor speaking skills and no charisma, the selection of Davis as opposition leader would be counter-productive in the present circumstances.
Cooper would be the smart choice for the post of leader in parliament. He is fresh, untainted by political scandal, unrelated to any political dynasty, and not a part of the geriatric PLP mafia. But party grandees are unlikely to allow Brave and Glenys to be sidelined.
Posted at 11:34 AM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (2)
by Larry Smith
Continue reading "Exuma Fyre Festival—"Possibly The Worst Event Of All Time"" »
Posted at 08:22 AM in Current Affairs, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0)
by Larry Smith
Continue reading "Bahamas Electoral Prospects for May 10 2017" »
Posted at 04:09 PM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (3)
by Larry Smith
Continue reading "Fake News and the Mainstream Media—Bahamas and America" »
Posted at 11:24 AM in Culture, Current Affairs, Politics | Permalink | Comments (3)
by Larry Smith
Continue reading "Opposition Forces Must Tap Into Popular Outrage" »
Posted at 06:25 AM in Current Affairs, Politics | Permalink | Comments (3)
by Larry Smith
One thing’s for certain - there has been no shortage of analysis from every quarter on why Donald Trump won the US presidential election.
For Breitbart News - the provocateur website run by Trump’s right-wing strategist Steve Bannon - it was a foregone conclusion.
Their candidate (whom they refer to as ’Daddy’) promised to disrupt establishment politics and upend the sclerotic global system that America and its allies have built up over the past 70 years.
“We’re going to build an entirely new political movement,” Bannon said in a recent interview. "The conservatives are going to go crazy. I’m the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan…It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution - conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement.”
Trump’s anti-globalist headline policies during the campaign focused on a border wall, radical immigration and trade restrictions, reneging on international treaties, and reversing whatever progress has been made on climate and environmental issues.
But before we get into that, let’s look at the numbers. At the time of writing, Hillary Clinton led Trump by well over a million votes - 48 to 47 per cent - but Trump won in the electoral college.
Continue reading "Why Trump Won and What it Could Mean for the Bahamas" »
Posted at 05:35 PM in Current Affairs, Environment, Politics | Permalink | Comments (2)
by Larry Smith
Posted at 06:32 PM in Current Affairs, Politics | Permalink | Comments (2)