NO CANDIDATES HAVE BEEN CHOSEN FOR THE PLP

During the past week, there was a letter circulating on line and in what’s app groups which purported to be from one of the aspirants for candidacy for the PLP in the next general election.  No one knows whether the letter was genuine or not but that did not stop the FNM sites from leaping on the letter as evidence that there was something nefarious or amiss about the selection process for candidates for the PLP.

The FNM was also promoting the fact that they had the PLP scrambling or so they said, to think that the Prime Minister Hubert Minnis is about to call a general election when in fact he plans to go right to the end of the term to 2022.  Certainly after reading the National Review piece of Candia Dames, the Prime Minister would be thinking again about a general election call because they have nothing to campaign on.

People should understand though that the PLP is not responding to anything specific from the FNM. The PLP must be ready at any time to fight the general election.  The Party’s Chair Senator Fred Mitchell told Eyewitness News that  the Party’s number one aim is to become the Government Of The Bahamas. The Party is also aware that under the constitution the Prime Minister can at any time call a general election.  This means that the party must be ready. So what the country is seeing is a party that is readying itself for a general election whenever it is called.

There are some people both within and without the PLP who are anxious about the fact that  aspirants are on the streets and are jousting with one another. Why they would they be worried about that, we are not sure, since the party decided in its constitutional change two years ago that this is the process of a bottom up democracy. Now some want to short circuit the process and say let the leader choose. This would be going backwards and we do not support that.

The  letter that the FNM is hanging its hat on, cannot be taken to be representative of the truth of its contents.  There is a rule, we tell people, that whatever is asserted, you have to hear the other side.   People in any event should be careful about putting information which may well be false and defamatory in writing. It does damage to the party and goes to the credibility of the individual who does it.

Politics in these days and times, perhaps more than ever before requires a stable mind and the ability to   know when to keep your mouth shut.  People who don’t know how to do that, are saying something about their character and their  fitness for office.

The time has come to for the candidates to be chosen..  The Chairman said that the letters are going out for the next stage of the process, branch engagement and recommendations. Until then, every one should keep calm and not listen to FNM propaganda about PLP candidates.  PLP candidates should not be inflicting wounds on themselves.