The Progressive Liberal Party's (PLP) Convention Committee last night decided to postpone the party's November convention in order to allow the government to focus on relief efforts for those impacted by Hurricane Joaquin. Convention Committee Chairman Shane Gibson said before the committee met yesterday that he planned to recommend the party postpone the convention.
The Guardian understands that no member of the committee opposed the postponement. PLP Chairman Bradley Roberts last night confirmed the postponement and while he did not give a firm date for the next convention, he said they projected it would be held in April next year.
"The party's leadership has determined that the level of devastation caused by Hurricane Joaquin and the scope of the recovery, the rebuilding and restoration efforts - especially of the physical infrastructure - necessarily require the full attention and focus of the government at this time," Roberts said in a statement last night.
"Bringing a measure of normalcy and comfort to the lives of the residents of the southern Bahamas and assisting them with rebuilding their lives and their communities are of paramount importance to the government at this time.
"Politics must necessarily and wisely take a secondary role to this critical national undertaking. The Progressive Liberal Party deeply regrets any inconvenience caused to any of its supporters and the public. The new date for the national convention will be communicated to the public in due course but is projected to held in April 2016."
Gibson, minister of labor and national insurance, told The Guardian outside Cabinet earlier yesterday that many party members are involved with the recovery effort and the party wants to be sensitive to those who have suffered as a result of Joaquin.
"Being sensitive to what our fellow Bahamians are going through in those devastated islands, I think it wouldn't be right for us to proceed with a convention at this time," Gibson said.
"Over the past several weeks, since the hurricane, we've been debating whether or not we should actually have or convention as scheduled from November 1-7," he said.
"When you look at the devastation caused by the hurricane and the conditions that people now find themselves in we find it difficult. So as convention chairman I intend to tonight (Tuesday) to meet with the convention committee and recommend to them that we not proceed with convention at this time. We will see how we can concentrate all of our efforts on trying to bring immediate assistance to all of those persons who were negatively impacted by the hurricane."
The category four storm ravaged the central and southern Bahamas on October 1-3. It left many residents homeless and destroyed communities on Acklins, Crooked Island, Long Cay, Long Island, Rum Cay and San Salvador. This would be the second time the PLP postponed its convention. It was scheduled to hold its convention last year. The last PLP convention was 2009.
When asked if the party would lose money, Gibson said, "I would hope we wouldn't. Last year when we postponed the convention we lost tens of thousands of dollars.
"This year I think circumstances are a bit different where you have mother nature causing us to be in the position we are in now. So we are hoping that we can sit down with all of the vendors who we would have made deposits with already and see how we can minimize our losses and, of course, see how we can use as much of those funds, if not all, to assist with the hurricane victims."
Gibson said he is unsure of a future date for the convention.
"We want to be sensitive to what is going on," he said. "Even though we would like to announce a date now, we have to be comfortable that the persons who have been negatively impacted would have significantly recovered from their losses and until we are sure that it happens I'm not sure that we want to schedule a date. But suffice it to say we would have to have a convention before the next election."
The planned convention was notable in that it was unclear if Prime Minister Perry Christie would be challenged for leadership of the party. PLP Deputy Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis has indicated his willingness to become PLP leader, but has neither confirmed or denied if he would run for that position. Christie has said that Davis should not run against him, because, among other things, the PLP should be unified to best tackle the challenges facing the nation.
The Democratic National Alliance (DNA) announced last week that it has postponed its planned convention to focus on hurricane relief efforts.
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