Dear Editor,
Democratic National Alliance (DNA) Leader Branville McCartney has had a mouthful to say in recent days about the one-year anniversary of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) gold rush administration of Prime Minister Perry Christie.
McCartney told The Nassau Guardian that he cries shame on the Christie regime and that he really wishes the Bahamian people could be in the position to sue the government for breaching its contract. He also went on to say that what the PLP did in its A Charter for Governance is just "pure written garbage".
The PLP's performance in its first year has inspired very little confidence among thousands of swing voters who had decided to hitch their wagons to the gold rush train. Measured by its own standards, the Christie administration has obviously failed. Whoever wrote the Charter for Governance was so keen on winning the general election that he obviously didn't give much thought to its feasibility.
Any person who believed that the PLP would be able to double the investment for education is either gullible or doesn't have all his marbles. I think most Bahamians are well aware of the PLP's lackluster performance, notwithstanding McCartney's recent pronouncements in the press. Having said all that, I am of the view that McCartney should be the last person to complain about the PLP government's performance. I believe that McCartney is the main reason why the PLP is in power today. In early 2010, McCartney resigned from the Ingraham Cabinet as minister of state for immigration. After his resignation, he told the press that he remains a committed FNM MP and that he is loyal to the leadership of then-Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham. However, in 2011 he resigned from the FNM and subsequently founded the DNA party that same year.
McCartney fielded candidates in each of the 38 constituencies in the 2012 general election. It is a known fact that DNA candidates played spoiler to the FNM in at least 15 constituencies. I am convinced that had it not been for McCartney, FNMs Tommy Turnquest, Norris Bain, Zhivargo Laing, Carl Bethel, Desmond Bannister and about nine or eleven others would all be sitting members of Parliament today. I don't believe McCartney realistically expected to win the election. What he wanted to do was to hurt the FNM and Hubert Ingraham.
I say this because one of his former candidates, Osman Johnson, who ran in Pineridge, Grand Bahama, said after the election that while he was disappointed that the DNA lost, at least his party prevented the FNM from getting back into power. This was their plan all along. To say that McCartney sent his candidates on a fool's errand would be a grave mistake. These people never entertained any serious thoughts of winning at all. I submit that their primary goal was to frustrate the FNM at the polls; and in so doing, they helped the PLP's cause.
The 13,000-plus Bahamians who voted for the DNA were used in McCartney's game of chess with the FNM. Now he wants to be in every newspaper griping about the failures of the PLP government in order to appear relevant. He needs to know that thousands of FNMs could care less about what he has to say. Rank-and-file FNMs are so upset with McCartney that some of them have vowed not to support the FNM if McCartney ever returns to the party. I honestly don't believe that McCartney appreciates the magnitude of his decision to establish a fringe party. He literally changed the course of Bahamian history for the worst - and all because of some minor spat he had with someone in the Ingraham administration. We need people who will put country ahead of politics.
Rather than appearing in the press to offer his unsolicited analysis on the PLP government, he should instead focus his attention on assisting Rodney Moncur -- a man who ran for the DNA in the Bains Town and Grants Town constituency. Moncur's home was recently destroyed by fire. As the old adage goes, charity begins at home. If the DNA isn't concerned about the few members it has remaining, why should Bahamians believe that the party is concerned about them?
- Kevin Evans

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