Elizabeth, its cold and some men have made me angry – if I didn’t know any better I would think the devil was on the loose and hell had frozen over. Good Governance has been temporarily replaced by sick games and it is the ordinary people of The Bahamas who will suffer, long after Hubert Ingraham, a multi-millionaire, and Malcolm Adderley, a political prostitute, are gone. So I have come here tonight, not wishing to talk very long, as there is now a lot of work to do. I have but one question for the constituents of Elizabeth tonight, a question the FNM Government is now forcing you to answer.

Ladies and Gentlemen, year before last around this same time, the time when the Progressive Liberal Party pauses to reflect on the historical significance of Majority Rule, a date of national importance, Hubert Ingraham and the FNM, aided and abetted by one or two troublesome PLP’s we suspect, tried this very same trick. It was an attempt to destabilize our Party and, to call into question the qualities and abilities of our Leader, the Rt. Honourable Perry Christie. The political prostitute of choice at that time was Kenyatta Gibson, you will recall. The only difference in the plot was that he was not being asked to vacate his seat and force a by-election. Rather, he was induced to cross the floor in return for a legal deal here and there, while attempting to publicly embarrassing Perry Christie in the process. Time is now ticking on Kenyatta’s political career as there is not very much left to do with a political whore after having carried out the act for which he had been paid.

The story will be similar for Malcolm Adderley in about three years at best. History will not be kind to either of these men who both share another similarity. You see, both of them had family members appeal to our kind hearted Leader before the 2007 Elections for their opportunity to be standard bearers in the PLP again in their respective constituencies. In the face of much opposition and criticism in the very inner circle of our Party Machinery, Mr. Christie stood up for these men, and personally secured at that time their shaky political futures. Not long after however, time has revealed the true nature of politicians like Malcolm Adderley and Kenyatta Gibson – by nature, a whore is a whore, is a whore.

For those who may be offended by my language, I use the modern day equivalent to harlot or prostitute no differently than many Old Testament references to the people of God who had gone astray, of particular prevalence in the book of Jeremiah.

But I do not wish to dwell any longer on the characters of these men – each will have to live with himself. Godfrey Pro Pinder, who has his own connection to Malcolm Adderley’s family, had a lot to say about him on 106.5 FM yesterday afternoon with Deacon Jeffrey Lloyd. As a fellow Attorney, Pro Pinder has no confidence in Malcolm Adderley’s legal competency. He described in great detail how Malcolm for much of his life has always looked out for his own interest first, and Pro Pinder went as far as to question, Mr. Adderley’s moral compass. The most important point in the interview between Pro Pinder and Jeffrey Lloyd I thought however was Mr. Pinder’s assertion that if Malcolm Adderley truly cared about you Elizabeth, he would have come to you and spoken with you before he laid down with Ingraham and the FNM. I agree, I don’t know about you.

So I am going to let your former Member of Parliament live with his decision – I hope it was good for him, hope he used some protection. Prostitution often time can be a deadly thing.

Members of the media, a media in large part controlled by Free National Movement operatives, wish to aid in distracting the Bahamian people from the real issues facing this Country, caused in large part by a Government who has no answers or solutions. Malcolm Adderley resigns from the PLP and they would have you believe that somehow we are in crisis or that age old lie that our Leader, Mr. Christie is weak. To the contrary, I say. It is our Country under the questionable leadership of Hubert Ingraham and the FNM that is in crisis. How is it that the resignation from the PLP receives more coverage than the speculation of a politically motivated judicial appointment or for that matter that yesterday it was reported that this shameless FNM Government has borrowed more money in 2-1/2 years than the Christie Administration’s full term. And, in light of this, they are still enthusiastic about a staged by-election.

I want the press to know, along with juvenile pundits attempting to be politicians within and without our Party, that the PLP is none the weaker over the departure of Malcolm Adderley. For those who say that an ultimatum should have been put to Adderley long ago or that he should have been fired, I question your own political maturity. That the Progressive Liberal Party gave Malcolm Adderley every effort to decide his fate and his relationship with our Party demonstrates the kind of patience and considerate due process so badly needed in our political culture moving forward. Don’t hate on us because we don’t just wake up one morning and fire people and destroy people that is Hubert Ingraham’s style. That is without apology, not the style of our Leader. Further it was the collective decision of the Party Chairman before me as well as the parliamentary caucus to take this approach to Mr. Adderley’s position.

Now to make this some indictment on the leadership of the Progressive Liberal Party is ludicrous. No one is asleep at any wheel in the PLP. If anyone is sleeping in this Country it is members of the fourth estate and other commentators who refuse to compare and contrast the performance of this FNM Government to that of the immediate past PLP – Christie administration.

Why don’t they go through Ministry to Government Ministry and compare what this rudderless FNM Government has accomplished in comparison to the PLP, since they assumed office in 2007. That kind of information would be more productive for our struggling society. Not this constant knit-picking over foolishness with the PLP. The core of the PLP is intact, united and strong, resolute in purpose, and would leave no stone unturned in our quest to rid the Bahamas of this corrupt, rudderless, clueless, manipulative and wild and unproductive spending FNM Party in Government.
 

Whatever the outcome in this present dilemma, the real disgrace in this fiasco are Hubert Ingraham and the FNM. How do we describe their legacy? We are in the worst crisis our Country has had to face in recent memory. Our economy is in shambles, crime is at its most alarming and exacerbating already mounting social ills and misery, and what does the tried and tested leadership of Hubert Ingraham decide to do? Manipulate the constitution, compromise the independence of the judiciary, and weaken our democratic institutions – all for self serving political reasons. If it was Hubert Ingrham’s attempt to hatch a sinister scheme that will likely leave our more than 250 year old democracy the laughing stock of the region, he may have succeeded

The Ingraham legacy continues: The record will show that ever since May 2, 2007, the Bahamian were witness to motley crew of cruel actors committing a comity of errors that have left our once fair commonwealth on the brink of social and economic collapse. It has been one nightmare after another since the return of Hubert Ingraham who failed to remember his own words before the General Election of 2002 where he admitted that he had taken The Bahamas and the Bahamian people as far as he thought he could.

Now he’s jumped back at the wheel and taking us way backward. A record 88 murders in 2009 and could exceed 100 when the final classifications are completed; over 40 thousand Bahamians on the unemployment lines; a dried up economy that has contracted by more than 4% last year and is projected to contract further this year lead by a contracting tourism industry; two downgrades of our sacred sovereign rating in two years, and the FNM has the nerve, gumption and audacity to talk about tried and tested leadership. They never take responsibility for anything, blaming this sorry state of affairs on a global recession, but we know this to be the result of a callous, visionless, washed up, and bankrupt leader in the name of Hubert Ingraham whose most prominent legacy is the authoring the STOP, REVIEW, AND CANCEL policy. Further, there are thousands without light, hundreds without access to grants and loans for college education, a botched health care scheme, no significant attraction of foreign direct or local investment – Elizabeth the list goes on and on … just one horrific nightmare after another. And now this!

But they feel now that they can come to you with money the Government has had to borrow because there are many times we could hardly pay our bills. They think that they can come in and offer you some temporary jobs that no doubt they will take from you at the very first instant they can. Tommy Turnquest who has been a complete disgrace in the Ministry of National Security, who has been the worst failure in that Ministry from its conception, overseeing the highest murder rate in the history of the Bahamas, has had the heart to predict victory for the FNM in Elizabeth. Carl Bethel who was forced out of the Cabinet and given the consolation prize of Chairman of the FNM is said to have had knowledge of Malcolm Adderley’s plans weeks ago, and has already been working the ground here in Elizabeth. And Prime Minister Ingraham’s only response to this mess in the House of Assembly yesterday is to say that he will be in Elizabeth tonight.

You know why they are here; to try to buy you. Forty-three years after your parents and grandparents fought so hard to democratically vote in a better way of life for ordinary Bahamians who were mistreated and were not equal in their own Country, the FNM has set this all up because they are sure that just like Malcolm Adderley, they can buy you.

No doubt times are hard in The Bahamas, even here in Elizabeth. This by-election is sure to bring some economic stimulus to this Constituency. Do not forget however that it was the FNM who put us in these hard times. So the little that they will offer you could never make up for the damage already done. As a man with a good sense of reality, I encourage you to take all that is offered AND VOTE FOR THE PLP.

But my question tonight Elizabeth is a simple but serious one. Fittingly, you are named after a woman even. Elizabeth oh Elizabeth, before the bell rings official contest is under way to bring meaningful and honest representation to Elizabeth, I need to know just one thing. Elizabeth, are you a whore? Elizabeth will you be bought?