FREE National Movement Leader Dr Hubert Minnis said if he were elected as prime minister he would not assume a ministerial portfolio but instead be the "CEO of Cabinet to ensure that everything gets done."

These are not the best of times in The Bahamas. A murder record was set this year and we still have a month left in 2015. Baha Mar collapsed and 2,000 people were fired. The unemployment rate is likely somewhere between 15 percent and 18 percent.

When crime is high and jobs are hard to find, governing parties usually lose elections. But in the midst of this, the opposition to Prime Minister Perry Christie keeps fragmenting. There are now three parties "of some note" seeking to challenge Christie's Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) at the next election. While only the Free National Movement (FNM) has a chance to be government, the more the opposition vote splinters the more likely it is that the PLP will retain government, in spite of its poor performance in office.

The new entrant
A third political party has a leader in the House of Assembly. Gregory Moss, the Marco City MP, announced last week that he has been elected leader of the newly formed United Democratic Party (UDP). Moss became an MP in 2012 on the PLP ticket. He resigned from the party in June, saying the PLP had a leadership problem. He was an independent before forming the UDP.

Moss comes across as a leftist populist. He has criticized the PLP for implementing value added tax (VAT), branding it as disproportionately harming the poor; he pledges to bring forward a mortgage relief bill to help keep Bahamians who are struggling to pay their mortgages in their homes; he is against the PLP's version of National Health Insurance (NHI), arguing the governing party only wants to tax Bahamians for something they already get for free.

Moss is an articulate critic of Christie in Parliament. He is not afraid of highlighting the governing party's failures. His weakness is he has no deep base of support in Grand Bahama. His "party" is not part of a movement, nor does it really have members.

The UDP will not win a seat. No one running for the UDP will get his or her nomination deposit back. The party is simply about Moss - just as the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) is all about its leader.

The DNA's fight to survive
The DNA was formed in 2011. Its leader, Branville McCartney, had a falling out with his then leader, Hubert Ingraham, and McCartney left to become an independent before forming the DNA. McCartney's message in the 2012 campaign was that it was time for a change from Ingraham and Christie. He hoped exhaustion with the duo, who had at the time collectively served 20 years as prime minister, would swing voters to his side. No DNA won a seat in that election, but the party won a respectable 8.5 percent of the vote.

Since then things have fallen off for the DNA. Many of its candidates have left and joined new parties. For example, Wayne Munroe, former DNA candidate for Mt. Moriah, is now a PLP; Karen Davis, former DNA candidate for Marathon, and Rodney Moncur, former DNA candidate for Bains Town and Grants Town, are now FNMs. McCartney's momentum seems to have stalled.

The Minnis FNM
An accident of history made Dr. Hubert Minnis FNM leader. The party was beaten badly in the 2012 election. Out of the few FNMs who won, he just seemed the best one to take on the post of leader.

Ingraham retired after the loss. While he has a base of support in the party, there are other FNM factions made up of former MPs, ministers and financiers who do not want him to continue. These FNMs do not think Minnis has the ability to be a good prime minister.

Minnis retained his post as leader last November when he beat Loretta Butler-Turner. That win did not quiet his critics. They want another run at him. If he wins again it is unclear if all who oppose him will remain FNMs.

Some might not vote in 2017. Some might join other opposition parties. Some might consider forming their own party.

The third Christie term
The more the opposition divides, the easier it will be for Christie and the PLP to win again. If the DNA takes a hundred votes here and there, and the Moss party takes a few dozen voters here and there, and the FNM takes its chunk here and there, the PLP will only need to hold its base to remain government.

Christie's party has not performed well enough to deserve a third term. Few think the country is heading in the right direction. The problem is that no opposition leader has emerged yet to unite the majority against the governing party.

Sure, three-pointers are nice, but when Michigan desperately needed points Friday, the Wolverines turned to Caris Levert down low, and he responded with two big baskets that helped Michigan defeat Bahamian Shaquille "Shaq" Cleare and the University of Texas Longhorns, 78-72, in the final round of the Battle 4 Atlantis.

Michigan (4-2) went 14-for-25 from three-point range, with 11 of the three-pointers in the first half. That is one of the main reasons why the Wolverines never trailed in the game and led by 13 points at 58-45 with less than 12 minutes remaining.

"We got great shots," said Levert, who scored a game-high 19 points on 8-for-14 shooting. "We really shared the ball and knocked down the open shots. We know we're capable of that when we really pass the ball like we did."

The Longhorns (2-3) battled back behind Isaiah Taylor, who scored seven of his team-high 18 points in the final 11 minutes. When Taylor hit a lay-up and foul shot with 4:26 left, Texas had cut Michigan's advantage down to a single point at 67-66. The Longhorns' momentum ended in the next 36 seconds, however, as Levert drove for power lay-ups on consecutive possessions. That pushed the Wolverines' lead back up to 71-66, and Texas never got any closer the rest of the way.

"I'm really thrilled for our guys, to play that well in the first half and then hold off a great charge by a very good Texas team," Michigan coach John Beilein said. "I didn't realize it got down to one (point). I thought it was still three, and then all of the sudden we made a couple of big shots... and that let us get back to a lead we could finish with."

Still, it was the three-pointers that will receive much of the attention from this game, and rightfully so. Of the Wolverines 44 first-half points, 33 of them came off of three pointers. Texas coach Shaka Smart said the Longhorns were simply too sluggish on defense in the first half.

"We needed to be way more aggressive on the defensive end," Smart said. "We were pretty much allowing them to go where they wanted, pass the ball where they wanted, make pinpoint passes, and then when they got the ball at the three-point line, we needed to have a high hand every time. We were just nowhere near good enough."

The Longhorns finished sixth in the tournament while the Wolverines ended in fifth place. The other Bahamian in the tournament, Tavario Miller, saw about four minutes of action as he and the Texas A&M Aggies fell to the Syracuse Orange in the championship game, 74-67.

The Ministry of Finance has taken "strong exception" to the suggestion that officials in the ministry and the VAT (value added tax) Department have reneged on the understanding of insurance policies renewed before July 1, 2015 and how they are to be treated under VAT.

The ministry issued a statement in response to remarks carried in The Tribune, in which Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers' Confederation Chairman Gowon Bowe confirmed that the insurance industry and the government are at odds over the industry's ability to recover VAT paid on certain claims associated with Hurricane Joaquin.

Bowe asserted that there was effectively a "nine-month window" during which annual premium payments would have been VAT-free for policy holders, given that Joaquin struck at the beginning of October and that VAT was only levied on general and health insurance premiums from July 1 forward.

Bowe said, "There are new issues emanating, particularly from the insurance sector; how to deal with the claims that may not have had VAT paid on the premium."

According to the Ministry of Finance - and contrary to views attributed to representatives of the insurance industry - the ministry never agreed that policies on which premiums were exempt from VAT would accrue VAT credits when insurers paid out claims triggered on or after July 1, 2015.

"While provisions were included in the June 2015 Amendments to the VAT Act to allow insurance companies to earn credits for settlements on claims triggered before June 30, the government only provided this concession to defray the cost of administering policies during the six-month transition period when insurers could not pass the VAT directly along to policy holders.

"The ministry always made it clear that once premiums became subject to VAT, only those policies on which VAT started to be paid would be eligible to earn credits when related claims were settled," the ministry said.

The press statement issued by the ministry added that, "The insurance industry was not amendable to proposals that would have allowed property owners to pay VAT on a prorated basis on policies renewed prior to July 1. Only then would coverage have been fully protected for the effects of VAT. However, the industry sought and received accommodation to have these policies grandfathered on an exempt basis until the next renewal date.

"In the circumstances, it is the exempt treatment that renders these policies ineligible for VAT credits. While the ministry recommended, the industry was also not receptive to inviting holders of these policies to augment their coverage compensate for the imposition of VAT."

The ministry contended that it continues to be transparent with the insurance industry, and has communicated continuously with stakeholders on these matters.

"At this stage the ministry is not aware of any outstanding issues, as responses have been provided on all industry-level matters that have been raised. Prior to July 1, 2015, all insurance premiums were exempt from VAT. Under provisions of the VAT Act, premiums on medical polices became taxable as of July 1, 2015. In the case of property insurance, VAT is applied from the first date of renewal after July 1, 2015," the ministry said.