“Vulgar: lacking sophistication or good taste. Synonyms: tasteless, crass, ostentatious, flamboyant.”

Prime Minister Perry Christie’s sense of entitlement toward and lustful attempt to maintain power has turned blasphemous: “God placed me in a position to be able to say to PLPs, Thy will be done.”

The man who referred to himself at a Chamber of Commerce conference as “I, the country”, is now invoking divine warrant for his leadership of the PLP, as if he has a divine right to rule.

Perhaps the coat of arms he inappropriately wanted designed for him as prime minister might include a crown at the top with the words “Christie Imperator: Anointed of God”. Having also referred to himself as a gladiator, perhaps there may also be a bronze shield and a jewel encrusted in sword.

Christie no longer even makes a pretense of humility. He is swollen with pride. His megalomania and arrogance are undiluted.

Given his atrociously abysmal failure as prime minister, his excess of unwarranted pride, his inflated sense of himself, his meager accomplishments, the gravely delusional Christie has become a laughable, sad and increasingly tragic figure.

Christie is a manifestation of the entrenched culture of entitlement within the PLP, a culture which believes that it has a superior right to govern The Bahamas and to divide the nation’s wealth among its oligarchic elite.

What others see as corruption, PLP mandarins see as business as usual, their right to plunder with zeal the country’s resources, often at the expense of the poor whom they feign to love, but whom they continue to exploit in their frenzied lust for power and wealth and prestige.

Entitled
Over the course of 60 years the PLP tribe has had two major leaders, a telling reality in a democracy. Today the head of state is Sir Lynden Pindling’s widow, who views herself as entitled to the position.

At a ceremony at Government House she chided Christie for forgetting to bow to her. One senses that this was more than about paying respect to the Queen’s representative.

For decades, the Royal House of Pindling has demanded that its subjects and sycophants genuflect and prostrate themselves in obeisance and loyalty, which is why Christie likely recommended Sir Lynden’s widow for knighthood and why he recommended her appointment as governor general.

Moreover, Christie likely wanted to ensure that Dame Marguerite would not unleash her forces against him at a convention had he failed to recommend her appointment. Christie dutifully bows to the Pindling mystique, mythology and pseudo-majesty, while likely disgusted that he has to play this game. He plays the game because what was good for Pindling must also be good for Christie: Unquestioned loyalty within the PLP to the leader. Criticism of a PLP chief is met with thunderbolts of hatred and viciousness. Christie is adept at appearing charming and civil even as he unleashes his attack hounds. He learned this much from Sir Lynden.

The PLP is cultish, a quasi-religion with its own tenets of faith and theology: Sir Lynden was a demigod; the PLP is entitled to rule the country; the PLP loves the masses and is the party of the poor; the PLP alone is the real guardian of black Bahamians. Those who disagree with these dogmas and doctrines are apostates to be victimized and destroyed.

Recall Christie’s recent statement to the PLP faithful enraptured by his sermon and call to faithfulness: “God placed me in a position to be able to say to PLPs, Thy will be done.” The message is clear: Those who oppose me oppose God! High Priest Christie was invoking and conflating the symbols of the cross and the PLP hand as he marshalled support for his self-absorbed glorification.

Fanaticism
We have seen in history where this kind of fanaticism leads. It is no wonder that criticism of Christie by veteran PLP Philip Galanis has reportedly been met with various threats, and invidious invective.

Lewis Yard, Grand Bahama: In 1970, a group of senior PLPs decided to hold a party meeting one Sunday afternoon. They were alarmed by the cult of personality around Sir Lynden and the metastasizing corruption in, and direction of, the party and the country,

The delegation included Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, Arthur A. Foulkes, Maurice Moore, Garnett Levarity and C.A. Smith, all veterans in the fight for majority rule.

The meeting was held in a school room, with a raised platform for the speakers and rows of folding chairs for attendees. Having just invoked the Lord’s name in prayer, a goon squad sprang from the front row. Once on their feet they grabbed the chairs, folding them into bludgeons.

Then they viciously set upon their targets. They drew blood from Sir Cecil, bashing him in his head, and bruising others. On the way out of Lewis Yard, a close associate of Sir Lynden, who would later resign from the Cabinet in disgrace, was observed in a trench coat, standing in a drizzling rain.

To ensure that those who disagreed with Sir Lynden and his court got the message intended at Lewis Yard, PLP MP Henry Bowen went on ZNS to denounce the dissidents as traitors. The charges were replayed on state radio in a barrage and loop of intimidation.

The sense of entitlement by the PLP has done considerable damage to and is antithetical to democracy in the party and the country. Christie says no one should challenge him at this time because it would be a distraction. Of course, the name for such a distraction is democracy.

Curiously, if God has decided that Christie should remain PLP Leader, surely no one can prevail against him, surely no power, principality or person.

Challenge
With reports that Deputy Prime Minister Philip Davis might challenge his leadership, Christie, publicly and privately, went into spitting and sputtering spasms of rage, like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, wanting to behead any who opposed the monarch’s decisions.

While Christie typically demonstrates a laggard approach to governance, he comes alive when his power is threatened. At an event at Bimini during this term he boasted: “They are wondering about how old I am. Tell them how I look. They are concerned about whether I have energy. Tell them to challenge me.”

The truth is that the septuagenarian Christie looks tired and worn. He is drained of enterprise and imagination. He is falling asleep at more public events. We do not need a prime minister who can do a quick Junkanoo shuffle for a few minutes. We need a leader who can complete an entire parade.

Christie’s greatest critics are not necessarily those in the media or the official opposition sickened by the mess he has made of the country. Among his greatest critics are those who see him more up close, members of his Cabinet, a number of whom are utterly exhausted by his failed leadership and rudderless course.

Despite his critics, despite his calamitous leadership, despite his dwindling ability and energy, when it comes to holding on to power Christie is going to put on a good show.

If Brave Davis wants to defeat Christie he will have to take the proverbial course of not simply wounding, but of metaphorically killing the king. Christie will be vicious in pursuit of power, as Dr. B.J. Nottage well knows from when Christie and the House of Pindling colluded to malign and destroy him. If Davis really thought that Christie would step down early, he may have a greater capacity for delusion than Christie.

Notably, neither Davis nor Christie have a vision for the country. They are propelled both by a sense of entitlement, raw power and insatiable ego. When asked why he wanted to become PLP leader, Davis said that it was his time. Really?

Asked what he has to offer the country, he responded, “Me.” Suffice to say that most people found this response beyond laughable. Davis should recognize that many of the PLP elite snobbishly do not view him as fit to lead the tribe.

Distraction
If an internal fight for PLP leader is a distraction, a general election would be a greater distraction for Christie. Perhaps the next election should be cancelled and Christie allowed to continue in office.

If, according to Christie, God wants him to remain as PLP leader, God presumably also desires he remain prime minister. Hath God personally delivered this heaven-sent message unto Christie?

Some employ the image of the emperor with no clothes on as a metaphor to describe how delusional is Christie in not recognizing that the mass of Bahamians now view him as a grand fraud who failed to keep core promises but who keeps on regurgitating the same promises in a diarrhea of nonsense and rhetorical effluvia.

He talks about wanting to complete his legacy, as if the country owes him more time, and as if his legacy is more important than the good of the country. Were he not as incompetent and dysfunctional in his first term as prime minister and disorganized in this term, he could have completed considerably more. His is a chronicle of wasted time and wasted opportunity.

Christie is in the throes of delusion and denial if he is incapable of recognizing that many Bahamians now quickly change the channel when he appears on television. His endless talk of good times to come and of his leading the country in a new direction is a repackaging of the same rubbish he has spun this entire term, like spoiled milk, inducing revulsion.

The country in decline, Christie is living in a fairy tale. Perhaps in this fairy tale Christie parades in a golden carriage with horse-mounted outriders to a cathedral, where he processes up the aisle, not as an emperor without clothes, but as one clothed in flowing robes adorned with his coat of arms, replete with sceptre and orb, trumpets blaring a salute to his majesty, the one ordained by God to rule gloriously over us for as long as he so shall live.

Thankfully we live in something of a reality, and in a democracy where Christie’s fantasies, fairy tales and delusions of grandeur will be as unceremoniously defeated as was Sir Lynden’s delusion that he would rule The Bahamas for as long as he wished because he was so entitled.

• frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian