Tens of thousands of Bahamians are suffering because of a lack of jobs, adequate healthcare and hope. Thousands are without electricity. Many are struggling to buy food. The residents of New Providence are terrified about crime.
Throughout New Providence, Bahamians are being robbed with abandon, unable to easily replace items because they lack the financial means to so do. Many are terrified that robberies may turn deadly. And the killings continue to mount.
The country has been stalled in recession. The economy is not growing. It is moving backward as other countries in the region are growing. The GDP has declined. We are at risk of a downgrade to junk bond status.
Even as Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe joked in an interview that the competition should be worrying about what he's doing, tourism is stalled as Cuba, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic announce ambitious plans.
The Bahamas is falling behind in tourism. Many in the region are beginning to laugh at us. The collapse of and inability to open the shuttered Baha Mar continues to devastate our economy and our international reputation. The collapse is mostly the fault of the PLP.
We are now at the mercy of certain geopolitical forces to get the megaresort opened and will likely pay a heavy price for its opening. Meanwhile some Ministry of Tourism officials overseas have not been paid for a period of time and some offices are past due on their rent.
There is an overwhelming sense of malaise in the country, except among the PLP grandees and the beneficiaries of PLP rule who have done exceedingly well while tens of thousands of Bahamians are suffering, unable to make ends meet, despairing how to pay monthly bills, frightened of what comes next.
There is a prevailing and deepening sense of gloom and doom, with many depressed by their own prospects and the state of the country. The state of the real estate and construction industries exemplify the country's economic downturn.
We are in one of the worst periods since independence. The symptoms of social decay are everywhere. Many parents are telling their children abroad at college and university not to return.

Inexorable
The majority of Bahamians appear to have lost hope and believe that the country may be in an inexorable decline. There is little to no belief that the current leadership of the government or the opposition are capable of offering hope and reversing the decline.
Quite a number of professionals are looking at exit strategies, with a number having already left for the United States or Canada. A number of Bahamians are purchasing second homes overseas in case they need to leave the country.
Others have or are considering moving their money out of the country. The talk of a possible currency devaluation in the future is gaining momentum. The middle class, the glue that holds many societies together, is under enormous pressure. The center of the country is in decline, fracturing. It may not hold.
Meanwhile, in a bubble of obliviousness and delusion, Emperor Perry Christie, the country's worst prime minister ever, struts around as if he is the best thing that has ever happened to the country.
Were he not prime minister, his audience would be seized with laughter at his ridiculousness and overly dramatic, stylized and vaudeville-like performances.
The emperor is ferried here and there and hither and thither in his motorcade with an outrider announcing his power and prestige. He keeps foreign investors, diplomats and guests waiting for his arrival as if he is the Grand Poobah.
His behavior is boorish, rude, arrogant and unbecoming of our head of government. He is ill-mannered and disrespectful. But he doesn't seem to care. It's a sort of power move: "I'm better and more important than you, so wait for me."
There are reports that he has even left Governor General Dame Marguerite Pindling waiting. If so, this is contemptuous of her position as head of state. Christie famously has little regard for Dame Marguerite.
But for political survival he caused her appointment as governor general. Whatever his personal animus toward the current governor general, he is obliged to show respect to the office.

Attitude
But so drunk with power and position is Christie that he dismisses the civilities and conventions which come with his office. His lateness is not just a bad habit. Even when aides have pressed him that someone is waiting, he takes his own sweet time. This is the attitude of a conceited emperor who loves being adored and waited on.
But the most obscene part of Christie's reign is his demonstration of contempt for the suffering of his fellow Bahamians. His so-called touch with the common man and supposed empathy is one big show, mere playacting, a political game, just as it is for Opposition Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis, a man of considerable wealth.
Christie left his Centreville constituency to deteriorate, doing little to improve the conditions of the area. He will give handouts, and talk about compassion for the poor, while leaving the residents of his constituency in dire shape.
His empty, shallow, insidious, ridiculous, nonsensical, blathering, meandering rhetoric is now such a joke that even young kids mock him. Thousands change the channel when he speaks.
He has become hugely unpopular though he believes that he is still the proverbial "cat's meow". His level of delusion has reached such heights that his rhetoric and actions now seem incoherent, bordering on unstable.
With the country in such dire state, a potentially unhinged and clearly delusional prime minister is a danger as we are seeing with his disastrous response to the Baha Mar crisis and to Moody's warning of a potential downgrade, both crises largely of Christie's making and spectacular incompetence.
Meanwhile, the unscrupulousness of certain PLPs is vulgar and nauseating. While many Bahamians are struggling to put food on the table, some are gorging themselves through contracts and extravagant deals.
Depressingly, such is that the state of the PLP, that Christie likely cannot be beaten in a leadership contest. As depressing, Christie could very well beat a Hubert Minnis-led FNM and a divided opposition, returning to office for another five years.
We face the miserable and sad prospect of being led for another five years by a boorish, delusional, incompetent emperor who cares more about himself and satisfying his court and cronies than he does for the least among us, whose suffering has gotten worse on his watch.

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

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