An ominous betrayal

Mon, Aug 23rd 2021, 08:26 AM

The portrait of tomorrow’s future is painted on the canvas of choices we make today.

A general election was not due until May 2022, so there was no constitutional or statutory mandate pushing the prime minister to go to the polls before that time.

In spite of this, he made a choice that was his alone to make, and that choice was to go eight months early, calling the election for September 16, 2021.

The governing Free National Movement (FNM) has chosen as its campaign slogan “It’s about your future”.

We question what kind of future Prime Minister and FNM Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis envisioned for The Bahamas when he made the decision to trigger what can become a three-week nationwide super-spreader election cycle during the worst phase of the country’s COVID surge.

Vice President of the Consultant Physicians Staff Association Dr. John Dillet said last week prior to Parliament’s dissolution, “I think most individuals in health care would believe that any type of election exercise where possibly large groups of people may be called to be in close distance to one another could potentially be a super spreader event.”

There is no credible argument to be made that the prime minister – a medical doctor – does not fully recognize this reality.

Considering the untenable risk an early election at this time can cause, and what can result if substantially large numbers of people become infected with no hospital capacity to care for the sick, we view the prime minister’s timing of the early election as one worthy of punishment at the polls.

No matter who wins the next general election, the biggest losers will be the Bahamian people and the country’s economy if the current deadly surge amidst a collapsed healthcare system, moves even further away from a flattening of the curve.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian

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