THE FNM HIDES BEHIND THE PORT’S GOWN TAIL

Grand Bahama Port Authority’s Headquarters in Freeport

The Free National Movement came into existence in 1971 following the resignation of the late Sir Cecil  Wallace Whitfield as Minister of Education and then from the PLP.  Mr. Whitfield as he then was, was followed by 7 others who joined themselves into a group called the Dissident Eight, and they then formed the Free PLP and then they amalgamated with the defunct United Bahamian Party to form the Free National Movement. The impetus for the break was complex, but apart from personality clashes, there was the policy over Freeport.  Sir Lynden Pindling in 1969 said that if Freeport’s social order did not bend it would be broken.  This was not a policy with which the right side of the PLP agreed to pursue and they did not like that Sir Lynden announced it without consultation.  To this day there is that cleavage within the society, with the FNM sucking up to the Grand Bahama Port Authority and the PLP trying to Bahamianize the city.  It was no surprise then that Michael Pintard came to the defence of the Grand Bahama Port Authority when the Chairman of the PLP Fred Mitchell indicated its intention to go to go to arbitration over the money owed by the Port to the Government for services provided by the government to the city.