With the Christie administration at the halfway point of this term in office, Prime Minister Perry Christie is facing a tight timeline in shaping his legacy and achieving big things in this term.
For him, 2015 will likely be a defining year. By the end of next year, Christie will need to say whether he intends to retire after this term or whether he plans to lead the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) into an election for a fourth consecutive time.
For this government, the challenges, as we know, are many. A lot is riding on the effects of the value-added tax (VAT) rollout come January 1. The new tax will increase the cost of living on a population already stressed and stretched.
But the government, faced with mounting debt, has said it has no other choice, as not implementing the tax would have an even more detrimental impact in the medium term.
Last week, the ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) maintained the country's credit ratings in its latest research update, but warned that, should the government's implementation of VAT not yield the projected results, future downgrades could be expected.
VAT will push the cost of living higher. For those already finding it difficult to pay their bills, the challenges will be greater.
While Baha Mar promises a significant economic boost after its scheduled opening next spring, the company's decision to lay off near 200 of its workers from the Crystal Palace hotel on Friday was the kind of news the government did not need at this time.
The company expects to add several thousand permanent jobs, however.
If the Christie administration can cause a significant dent in unemployment, it could be on its way to another term in office.
But, of course, there are no guarantees.
When the PLP lost the election in 2007, unemployment was 7.9 percent.
The latest numbers, released in July 2014 for a survey conducted in May, showed that more Bahamians were unemployed in 2014 than in May 2012 when the PLP returned to office.
But the rate of joblessness in The Bahamas declined from 15.4 percent recorded last November, to 14.3 percent in May 2014.
In the face of ongoing economic challenges, the prime minister has remained optimistic.
But many people do not now share the prime minister's optimism for better times in the near future.
Disillusionment
As we have reported multiple times, Christie has been fighting against a rising tide of disillusionment among many of his party's supporters and the wider Bahamian population.
There is the sense that things are not happening quickly enough. Many people are not feeling better about what is to come.
If people are not as patient as the government would wish, it should not be surprising to anyone.
Ahead of the 2012 general election, Christie declared that he was "spreading the PLP message and vision for hope and change to all our brothers and sisters".
So far, he has failed to deliver on many of his party's bloated promises and his vision for hope has also failed to materialize.
The government's much-touted mortgage relief program was a stillbirth; its National Health Insurance Plan "within the first year" (as articulated by the now Minister of Health Dr. Perry Gomez) was also dead on arrival, as were other promises.
We have yet to see the jobs boom that the PLP made so many voters believe would happen in the near term, and we have yet to feel any safer under the Christie administration.
In the final rally before the 2012 election, Christie said he had been all over the country talking to voters and "they are angry and afraid about [then Prime Minister Hubert] Ingraham's failure to lead on crime; they are angry about the 500 murders."
Today, there is still anger about crime and about Christie and the PLP's failure to deliver.
Last week, the murder count hit 100.
An emotive issue that was used by the PLP to woo voters, crime still remains the most serious of national concerns.
The greatly heralded Urban Renewal 2.0 has been short on results thus far.
As the government struggles with the crime problem, it has placed renewed focus on tackling illegal immigration.
While it faced criticisms on its recent crackdown in this regard, the government gave many Bahamians a sense that on an issue of critical national importance, it was getting it right.
For too long, we have not had the sense that any administration was serious about addressing this problem. We at least feel some sense of that.
But the future will determine whether there is consistency in carrying out the immigration laws.
Despite anger from the Haitian community over the enforcement exercises, we must not lose focus on addressing illegal immigration in a comprehensive and sustained way.
This, of course, means that the focus ought not just be on undocumented Haitian immigrants, but all undocumented foreigners in The Bahamas.
Energy reform
Ahead of the 2012 election and while in office, Christie has expressed big ideas.
He has, for example, promised to break the Bahamas Electricity Corporation into two -- an entity responsible for power generation and another to deal with customer service.
Christie has noted that the high cost of energy is one of the biggest threats to businesses in The Bahamas.
Consumers are also burdened, and are eager for the government to deliver on its promise to lower the cost of electricity in the country. The Bahamas Electricity Corporation's fuel charge has substantially driven up electricity bills.
If Christie can effect energy reform and significantly reduce BEC bills, this would be a major and unforgettable achievement.
Indeed, energy reform is among the key issues that could lead to another PLP term in office.

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