We are beset by deep economic and social crises, and relatedly beset by a paralyzing political crisis, with political leaders woefully incapable of responding with urgency and imagination to a myriad of economic and social problems.

In the PLP and in the FNM we have a leadership class that is mostly clueless and miserably out of their depth in confronting our challenges. They are the equivalent of a dinghy in the midst of a category five hurricane.

Prime Minister Perry Christie's inept leadership, from the inception of Baha Mar, to its collapse, to the government of China now controlling our economic destiny at the megaproject, demonstrates that he never had the capacity to articulate or promote a new economic vision for The Bahamas.

Will the new deal at Baha Mar lead to even more government debt in the form of payouts and concessions? And will Baha Mar, when it is finally opened, do what Christie thinks it will do for the Bahamian economy?

Christie and many of his most senior advisers are in a time warp when it comes to thinking creatively about the economy or responding to social decay, a symptom of which is the high incidence of crime.

Christie's failed anchor project philosophy-cum-public relations shtick is but one example of his tragic failure to even begin to understand a 21st century world and Bahamas economy.

He has always been intellectually lazy, preferring to let foreigners set the vision for our economy, whether at Cable Beach or Mayaguana. In this regard, he has always believed more in foreigners, while mouthing his pretend regard for Bahamian ingenuity.

If Christie is terrible at understanding the challenges and opportunities at hand, FNM Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis is even worse.

Unworkable
If the unworkable Over-the-Hill Freeport-style tax idea is one of his signature economic ideas, we are in store for a disaster on his watch. He keeps mouthing this plan because he is bereft of ideas and imagination.

The great tragedy of the contemporary Bahamas is the Tongue of the Ocean-like gap between what is possible and the current downward spiral and mess within which we find ourselves.

Though The Bahamas should be enjoying comparative economic advantages in the region, we are facing a variety of economic challenges and potential disasters mostly due to the incompetent and reckless leadership of Christie and the PLP.

General unemployment remains staggeringly high, with youth unemployment even higher. A significant part of an entire generation is growing up with few good prospects to utilize their talents for opportunities and work which offer a sense of meaning, accomplishment and pride.

High youth unemployment is both an economic and moral challenge for the country.

Given our deficit and debt levels, a currency devaluation in the future is possible. National Insurance faces a potentially dire shortfall in the not too distant future.

Relying heavily on revenue from VAT and other tax measures, the government has no clear strategy for growth and no clear strategy for diversification within tourism, financial services and across other industries.

Instead of further depressing the economy through certain taxes, we need a growth strategy that will help boost the economy and improve public finances.

Maritime
We are still not tapping into our fuller potential in the maritime industry, including training more Bahamians to work in the industry, globally.

At a ceremony at the Lowell J. Mortimer Maritime Institute, Christie offered his typical song and dance about the possibilities of the institute. Of course, it was mostly talk.

Instead of his government investing heavily in the LJM Institute, which could help to boost GDP, Christie and the PLP blew millions on a carnival that has not boosted GDP to the degree which Christie suggested. So much for economic vision.

The skills and knowledge gap in the country is extraordinarily exacerbated by a government-operated school system which is failing to graduate students with basic skills in literacy, numeracy and oracy.

Equally problematic is an enormous skills and knowledge gap in science, engineering, math and technology, as well as other subjects which would enable Bahamians to add value to various industries.

Despite high unemployment, banks, small businesses and other companies are having a difficult time finding Bahamians for entry-level jobs requiring basic math, English and speaking skills, not to mention employees who are punctual, considerate and dutiful.

Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace speaks exuberantly about a software platform for booking rooms designed in his ministry when he served as tourism minister.

This is the type of skill and knowledge set, and value-added productivity the country needs in order to be more competitive. It isn't that the country lacks the raw talent for various industries.

Imagination
Instead, the crisis is that we do not have an educational system capable of ensuring many more skilled Bahamians. And we do not have the political leadership that has the imagination and willpower to begin the arduous task of retooling our schools.

We need workers who provide various levels of service, including as administrators for various Bahamian and foreign-owned enterprises.

But we also need to inspire and educate a new generation of Bahamian inventors, owners, innovators and entrepreneurs who create and own new or innovative products and services, and who can add value to existing services.

Beginning with Lee Kwan Yew in Singapore, the leaders of that country devised an industrial policy that harnessed public and private finance in selected industries, with an emphasis on training and leveraging Singaporean talent and enterprise.

Today, neither the PLP nor FNM even come close to having the vision or leaders needed for such economic development and transformation. Both parties are severely lacking in talent and policy ideas to address our economic future and the longstanding social problems.

From the creative economy to software development for the tourism industry and financial services to mariculture, such as in seaweed production for food and other commercial purposes, we are paralyzed by uninspired and dysfunctional political leaders.

The FNM is supposed to be the alternative to the PLP. But over 40 years after its founding, it is a barely recognizable party. The party's decline was aided by those who promoted and sustained Minnis and who, once it was too late, no longer had the wherewithal to help remove him.

Weakened
It is tragic that a once grand party, beset by the worst leadership in its history, is now so weakened beyond recognition, that it is grasping at the possibility of a coalition with a party and leader that only have traction because of the FNM's precipitous decline.

If the Minnis-led FNM ushers in coalition politics in the country it will be a sad day for the FNM and an even sadder day for our heretofore stable two-party parliamentary democracy.

The state of the FNM can be seen from those MPs and candidates who are declining to run for re-election or abandoning their nomination to run for House of Assembly seats.

This loss includes the promising and capable North Eleuthera MP Theo Neilly, who has served a single term, and who likely would have performed well in government.

With a new generation of voters, more unaligned voters, and less regard for the PLP and FNM, there is an emerging inchoate realignment of politics.

This realignment includes the shedding of support and fracturing of the FNM because of the direction and decline of the party over the last four years. If the FNM loses the next election, who might emerge to build a new party, with a new vision and direction for the country?

Because of a lack of internal reform and ideas, and the lack of appeal of Christie and Minnis, both the PLP and the FNM have failed to garner strong and enduring support from voters under 30, the largest voting bloc.

This failure to reach this cohort and generation will have significant consequences for both parties and for political realignment.

Within the PLP, Alfred Sears appears to understand the current political fracturing and potential realignment within the country.

Sears is staking out his future and the future of the country, while Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald is looking like a self-absorbed nakedly opportunistic rethread attached to a dying past of which voters have grown weary.

The party and leaders, who best understand the current moment and coming events, will have an enormous opportunity to satisfy their ambitions and the greater ambition of an economically, socially and politically more advanced Bahamas nearing the third decade of what could be a more promising future.

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

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