Dear Editor,
I was involved in Bahamian politics since 1949. That election was the last seven-year term of Parliament, which came to a close in 1956. Long Island was allowed two members. Four members nominated for that election: Loran Pyfrom, H.M. Taylor, C. Bryce and A. Knowles. My father supported Pyfrom and Taylor, who won. No one under 21 (males only) who did not own property or paid 10 shillings or more for rent was allowed to vote.
I had gotten married the year before and my father had given me a lot of land in order for me to build a house, which meant that I was allowed to vote. I supported Loran because we were classmates during our school days. I was involved in politics ever since.
I later joined the then Bahamas Police Force. In the early 1950s, 51 or 52, Taylor, who lived across the street from Police Headquarters, came to see me to send a message to my father to find out when he (Taylor) could come to Long Island to see him. I promised to do so and I did. Sometime in 1952, Taylor again came to see me to find out if my father was coming to Nassau any time soon. Early in 1953, news broke that H.M. had formed a political party (the PLP).
In the year 1956 two significant events occurred. In January Etienne Dupuch moved his historic resolution in Parliament that saw the walls of victimization and racial discrimination crumble without a stone or bottle being thrown, a shot being fired, or without legislation being passed in Parliament or without it even being seconded - a political feat that should be recorded in the Guinness Book of Records. Contrary to some would-be political historians, Sir Lynden Pindling had nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with this, as he was not even an MP at the time. The next event was the end of the seven-year tenure of Parliament.
As a part of the British government's decision to rid itself of the majority of its colonial territories, it granted independent status to The Bahamas in 1973. As a prelude to this action, the British government in 1964 granted The Bahamas internal self government (ministerial) minus foreign affairs and defense. Independence was granted without owing any one, and I mean no one had to fight for anything. The country coffers were in the black. Sad to say, that was the last time the country had seen the black nigh on to 50 years.
In less than a year the voters of this nation will be going to the polls to choose a new government. I am in my 90th year and I am not afraid to admit that this year, in my opinion, has been for this nation the worst I have ever seen.
I have written in my columns on many occasions that from 1967 to the present this nation has had only one style of governance: a PLP one. In 1992 Pindling handed the country over to one (and a good one) of his (Pindling) proteges. In 2002 Hubert Ingraham handed the country over to the other protege, and so on up to now. There are those who will say that Dr. Hubert Minnis was not trained by Pindling. The answer would be yes, but it was by extension through one of his proteges, Ingraham.
Victimization, discrimination, racism, nepotism, cronyism and corruption were Pindling's yardstick. Up to now the electorate did not have a choice. It was always the best of a bad lot. But, in this election we have a choice. Today our national debt is over $7 billion; our borrowing capacity is about zero; our debt is astronomical; our dollar is about to go under.
When the bottom falls out of the bucket the politicians are going to pack up and go to their retirement castles in other countries to live in comfort stress free, while the majority of us are left to survive in poverty all because we refuse to read the handwriting on the wall and send the carpetbaggers packing when we have the chance to do so.
God had his chosen people the Israelites wandering in the dessert for 40 years as punishment for their transgressions. He saw fit to give us 50 years punishment for ours, so the presence of Branville McCartney and the DNA in the mix of our political choice was no accident, but one by providence.
I say to all my Bahamian brothers and sisters, look at the financial state of our country; look at our mortgages, school fees, our job situation; look at all the political fat cats and from whence they came; look at the bills that your unborn offspring will inherit at birth and say enough is enough and remember sufficient unto the day the evil thereof, and a word to the wise is sufficient.
- Errington W.I. Watkins Sr.
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