DNA Leader Branville McCartney is a political charlatan. The self-absorbed celebrity hides behind supposed high-minded principle but is really an egotist more wedded to his self-advancement than the good of the country.
McCartney's split with the FNM and subsequent launch of his vanity party helped the PLP to win the 2012 general election, without winning a majority of the popular vote. The PLP win has proven disastrous for the country, resulting in massive corruption, dramatic economic decline and the worst government since the drug era PLP.
Despite this abysmal record, McCartney seems hell-bent on splitting the opposition vote again, and helping the PLP to win re-election, despite his protestations of wanting a change of government.
The DNA will not win the 2017 general election. As in 2012, it is highly unlikely that it will win any seats. Clearly, McCartney would prefer that Christie and the PLP return to office than an FNM victory.
In a statement after he recently resigned from the Senate, McCartney stated that he wants: an "end to this corruption that pollutes and perverts governance in our country; ... real accountability for where in the world our billions of tax dollars have been funneled without our knowledge; ... a government that stands for you and will return power and prosperity to the rightful owners of The Bahamas..."
Given his supposed outrage at the PLP, and that the DNA has no chance of winning the next election, it is McCartney who is a farce. His actions and that of the DNA may ensure five more years of Christie and the PLP.
If the DNA helps the PLP to win the next election, it will bear some responsibility for the downward spiral of the country.
McCartney is like a spoiled privileged child when he can't get his peevish way. Just as he stormed out of the FNM under then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, he would prefer an FNM loss if he cannot get what he thinks he deserves from the party that he hurt at the last election. He is a pampered crybaby.

Fixated
McCartney is not truly concerned about the country. He is fixated on his overblown ego, inflated sense of self and desire to become prime minister. He is prepared to see the country go to hell for the sake of his vainglory and ambition.
DNA supporters and senior members should not trust McCartney. Was he prepared to see the collapse of the DNA if he were given a special deal by the FNM?
Just as he betrayed Hubert Ingraham and Opposition Leader Loretta Butler-Turner, McCartney could betray his DNA colleagues.
FNM Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis revealed that McCartney's high price for a coalition with the FNM was 16 of the seats the opposition stands the best chance of winning.
It is blazing arrogance that the fledgling DNA, with no seats in the House of Assembly, wanted an established major party, with four decades in existence and an impressive record in office, to roll over and allow McCartney's vanity party to potentially win such a high number of seats.
Had the FNM agreed to such a laughable, skewed deal, and had the DNA won those seats, McCartney would have been in the driver's seat.
McCartney is not a man of loyalty. Elected to the House of Assembly for the first time in 2007 under the FNM banner, he betrayed Ingraham and the FNM because he was incensed that he was not made a substantive minister at the same time as the late Charles Maynard, who was named minister of youth, sports and culture.
McCartney was fortunate to be made a minister of state so quickly. Others waited years before being made a state minister. But McCartney believed that he was special, the cat's meow.
Even during his initial days as a state minister, which he spent at the Ministry of Tourism, he chaffed that he did not have his own ministry, that he was not in charge, that his supposed stellar gifts were not being fully utilized.
By stellar gifts, McCartney must have meant his penchant for public relations, his perfumed appearance and love of fashion, and his stylized smug speaking style in which he attempts to give the impression of a student of policy with the patina of a serious leader.
This is all show with little substance. Many of McCartney's Cabinet colleagues viewed him as a man of little substance, who had little to say around the Cabinet table.

Judgement
McCartney was no Charlie Maynard, who was a hard worker, a man of humility, who was loyal to his party, and who had tremendous substance, and good policy and political judgement.
Maynard took his time learning the system and was working himself up the political ladder. His premature death is a loss to the country.
After becoming Leader of the Official Opposition, Long Island MP Loretta Butler-Turner appointed McCartney leader of government business in the Senate. With light year speed McCartney betrayed Butler-Turner.
There appeared to be more of a political arrangement between the two than McCartney will publicly admit. Soon after the appointment hell broke loose among many DNA supporters opposed to the appointment.
"Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and caldron bubble". McCartney was in political hot water of his own making. Enraged DNA supporters vented their volcanic anger toward him.
Within months, the preening McCartney resigned from the Senate, which made his statement after his abrupt resignation curious, telling and unconvincing.
McCartney stated: "Every decision I have made since entering frontline politics has not been made lightly.
"Whether it was to leave the FNM, to lead the DNA, or most recently, to accept the post as leader of opposition business in the Senate, I have carefully and prayerfully considered my moves as a public figure.
"It was no different when accepting the appointment as leader of opposition business in the Senate...
"It was an honor to once again represent the Bahamian people, however briefly, but it is clear the Bahamian people will be better served by a DNA not complicit in the dysfunction that hobbles Parliament at this time."

Sanctimonious
The statement is drenched in sanctimonious smugness, ridiculous rationalizations and cynical cant.
If McCartney had to resign so quickly, clearly he did not fully consider his actions before accepting the Senate appointment. He clearly threw Butler-Turner under the proverbial bus.
McCartney got bludgeoned from within for accepting the appointment. He was bound to make an exit from the Senate at the most convenient time.
The appointment was never about serving the Bahamian people or using it as a platform to address public policy and governance. It was just another platform for the self-absorbed and vainglorious celebrity more interested in performance art, profiling and public relations.
In his self-serving dribble of a statement McCartney noted: "Let the record reflect that when the electorate called for a more pragmatic opposition, the DNA was the first and only party to answer."
This is pure malarkey, a euphemism for a word that can't be used in this space. Others have sought pragmatic accommodation, which McCartney and the DNA scuttled because of their unreasonable and arrogant demands.
The only reasonable accommodation in McCartney's fairy tale world is for him to become prime minister, because, gosh darn it, when he looks in the mirror, he sees the fairest of them all, with a manicured persona better suited for reality television than the realities of serious politics and the hard work of government.

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

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