The Free National Movement's (FNM) decision to drop some incumbents and redeploy others to new constituencies is a sign of the party's increasing unpopularity among voters, said Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Leader Perry Christie yesterday.
Christie said the FNM scrambled to find new, fresh candidates to compete with the opposition's slate of hopefuls.
"They (the FNM) obviously have a difficulty in the sense that they have made two decisions: to respond to the fact that we have a significant number of new generation candidates and to invite current members of Parliament to step down," he said at a press conference at PLP headquarters on Farrington Road.
"The second problem they had is they were faced with the problem of unpopularity in particular areas and they had to shuffle them.  Some had to step down and move to other constituencies.
"There is nothing secret about someone who has represented a constituency for five or 10 years having to leave that constituency and go to another. The simple answer is [they] had become so unpopular that the leader of the FNM could not risk them running in that area."
Among the incumbent FNMs who have been shifted to new areas are Loretta Butler-Turner, the MP for Montagu who will run in Long Island; South Beach MP Phenton Neymour will run in Exuma and Ragged Island; Carmichael MP Desmond Bannister will run in North Andros and the Berry Islands and Marco City MP Zhivargo Laing will run in Fort Charlotte.
Christie also said the FNM made a misstep in choosing its candidates so close to the next election, which must be called by May. He added that his team has been on the ground for months, even years in some cases, galvanizing support from voters.
This is a change from 2007 when PLP candidates were announced just a few weeks before the election.
On Wednesday, the PLP ratified the last of 38 candidates.
The final candidates who were ratified by the PLP are Picewell Forbes, Mangrove Cay and South Andros; Dion Smith, Nassau Village; Damian Gomez, South Eleuthera; Gary Sawyer, Central and South Abaco and Dr. Perry Gomez, North Andros and the Berry Islands.
Dr. Gomez replaces sitting MP Vincent Peet who bowed out of the race last month amid a controversy over $180,000 in client funds.
"Except for Perry Gomez who is a late entrant into the race, all of our candidates have been -- some for years, some for many months -- campaigning," Christie said.  "So the Progressive Liberal Party is well ahead in terms of exposing ourselves and our views to the public.
"With respect to the FNM, for me it is an interesting time when I'm able to say they are late."
Christie added that the 'new' PLP is a well-structured, organized group with an arsenal of policies ready for implementation on day one, if the party is successful at the polls.
"We have a structured, comprehensive program that will be slowly unfolded to the Bahamian public. The intention is to demonstrate that we are very organized and that we are very prepared to take that same level of organization into governance," he said.
"We are testing as we go on all the propositions we are going to put to the Bahamian people as to their...effectiveness, that will be introduced into governance.  We are going to meet a Bahamas plagued with enormous problems and we are going to be called to govern very quickly, very effectively to arrest the crime problem.
"We have comprehensive strategies to do that; we have comprehensive strategies to create jobs. Those will be two major issues in the campaign.  We have a major commitment for education, which should excite the Bahamian people and give hope to people.  We are coming to the Bahamian people with [a] radical realignment of policies."
 

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