"Tomorrow is not just a day that can't be seen, it is a day that can only be seen by the decisions we make today."
- Auliq Ice

This week marks the fourth of a five-year term that the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) was given on May 7, 2012. There is one year to go before Bahamians will either return that political party to power or decide to turn it out of office.
Therefore, on the fourth anniversary of its current term we would like to Consider this... with one year to go, what are the PLP's prospects for being re-elected?

We will recap the current economic and societal state of affairs, peruse the political landscape as presently constituted and then suggest what is needed for the PLP to be successful next year.

Current economic and societal state
The two most intractable issues facing the current administration are the rise in crime that has reached the level of a critical epidemic, and the persistently plaguing incidence of unemployment, especially among young Bahamians.

The latter reality will become even more pronounced later this month as thousands of Bahamians leave high school, many with few prospects of pursuing higher education. Even more are without any real career options that will empower them to become productive citizens and ultimately nation-builders. Added to this conundrum are the hundreds of college students who will return home with meager career choices, due in large measure to an economy that, although continuing to recover from the great recession, has recently further contracted.

The continuing Baha Mar saga will further delay employment expectations for many thousands of Bahamians who have invested their hopes, dreams and future in the anticipation of improving their and their families' fortunes.

A satisfactory resolution to providing universal health insurance continues to elude us, amidst a miasma of confusion, delusion and misdirection, and will not likely produce any really meaningful results before the next general election.
The plight of thousands of Bahamian homeowners who have experienced foreclosures of their most significant investment against the backdrop of a failed government mortgage relief program, as well as repossessions of other personal assets, continue to haunt many persons who bought into the notion that the governing party would deliver on its campaign pledge that it was ready to govern on day one.

Perhaps one of the most off-putting pledges, now regarded by many as a fanciful campaign hoax, was the promise of "putting Bahamians first" - yet another undertaking that the government has failed to fulfil.

This is especially disconcerting to the plethora of well-prepared professional Bahamians who bought into assurances that, if they properly prepared themselves, they would be given the first opportunities in their own land. Sadly, that, too, is a promise that rapidly dissipated when the fathers of the nation departed public life.

Instead, what Bahamians have witnessed is a government that has continued its love affair with things foreign, from the wholesale adoption and importation of festivities that have little grounding in Bahamian culture, to the insatiable dependence and unrelenting reliance on foreign consultants, often at the expense of Bahamians who can provide the same, if not better, advice than those who journey here from parts foreign.

Political landscape
Notwithstanding all of the foregoing, and given its approval rating which now hovers at historically low levels, through brutally honest introspection, development of the innovative policies and astute strategies that are applied with adept, surgical precision, the PLP, for many, remains the best hope for the future of The Bahamas.
Sadly, with all of its shortcomings, the best thing that the PLP has working in its favor is an incompetent, lackluster, deeply divided, directionless and chaotic Free National Movement (FNM) opposition that has, in the past four years, failed to persuade many that it is best-suited to govern. There is a general view that as bad as the PLP is, the FNM, as currently constituted, will be even worse.
Similarly, the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) has yet to articulate a clearly defined, informative and pragmatic vision for The Bahamas. Until that party does so it will not be taken seriously by the electorate, except for those who are extremely exhausted with both the PLP and the FNM. That number represented eight percent of the electorate in 2012 and seems to be growing daily.
Given the results of the 2012 general election, when the PLP won 48 percent of the popular vote, and a clear indication that its popularity has decreased over the past four years, for the PLP to now be the best of the worst choices does not augur well for our democracy.
What, therefore, is urgently needed to ascend from the unfathomable depths that have been achieved by all of the political parties in the body politic?

Bold leadership now needed
The greatest deficiency of all the political parties is visionary leadership that will excite the electorate. Our leaders are tired, boring, and generally bankrupt of new, progressive ideas to solve our problems and elevate the country to new heights. Sadly, our leaders are more concerned about holding onto their positions instead of using their positions to positively influence progressive change and empower the people from whom they obtained their positions.

Secondly, leaders do not appreciate when it is time for them to leave, even when it is apparent to all but their sycophants and persons motivated by self-interest versus the national interest who continue to build up a false sense of reality in their leaders, hindering them from having clarity about what is best for the nation.

Third, all of the major political parties should hold early conventions. The PLP stated that it wanted to hold its convention after the referendum and that is understandable. The referendum is on June 7, so why wait until November to hold its convention which it has failed to do for the past seven years? The FNM also plans to hold its convention in November.
There are two plausible reasons for holding out that long: one, the leadership of both parties does not really want to hold conventions because that would mean that their positions could be challenged, and God forbid that from happening.

Secondly, the leadership of both parties would like to use the excuse that November is too close to the general election to change their leadership. Both of these reasons are not in the best interest of either the political parties or our democracy. They are nothing but self-serving excuses to hold onto power.

The best thing for both parties and our democracy is for the parties to hold early conventions, and to let the chips fall where they may. The duly elected leaders will then put the question of their legitimacy to rest and then embark upon selecting a slate of candidates who will run in the next elections.

In the run-up to the next elections, it will be vitally important for the PLP to offer candidates who will inspire the public to regain confidence in the political system, a view that is currently at an all-time low. The PLP should present candidates who are grounded in the philosophy and tradition of the party and who can clearly articulate a vision for a brighter future. It must get serious about its candidates, and those candidates who do not have the ability and talent to serve the country well in the 21st century Bahamas should not be nominated.

We have said it before and it is worth repeating: As a group, with some exceptions, the entire parliamentary class of 2012 is the most intellectually challenged, least prepared, most inarticulate and least informed group that we have seen in a mighty long time. It is time to select candidates who are qualified to serve in Cabinet, can debate the issues in Parliament without having to read their contributions verbatim, and who can represent us on the world stage with panache and aplomb.

If the PLP is hopeful of being returned to office, it must change the national narrative and engage in a more meaningful debate of the issues and resist the temptation of descending into the doldrums of deceit and deflection.

Finally, the PLP leadership must recognize that it has alienated many of its stalwart supporters and must embark upon a deliberate course of reconciliation, rehabilitation and re-engagement. Only by doing so will the party assure that its supporters are fired up and ready to hit the campaign trail with renewed vigor and enthusiasm that has been depleted over the past four years.

Conclusion
The time remaining in this term is rapidly diminishing. If the PLP is to win the next election, it must look deeply inside itself, perform an honest, critical analysis of its deficiencies and move rapidly to remediate them. It must act now, because it only has one year to go.

o Philip C. Galanis is the managing partner of HLB Galanis and Co., Chartered Accountants, Forensic & Litigation Support Services. He served 15 years in Parliament. Please send your comments to pgalanis@gmail.com.

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