THE RISK OF SELF INJURY
Fred Mitchell warned PLPs with the following statement on Friday 6 September 2024 about self-injury:
There’s a lot to talk about, so let’s get started. Good morning, Fred Mitchell, chair of the Progressive Liberal Party and MP for Fox Hill, Minister for the Foreign Service. Today is Friday 6 September 2024. I’m in Sandilands Primary School today. I was at Doris Johnson on Wednesday in L W. Young on Thursday. I had a great time.
The chair of the PLP has 3 roles that I discern. One is cheerleader. Another is disciplinarian and another as a fundraiser. The success of the last fundraiser depends very much on how well he does the first and the second. The first, which is a cheerleader, is to promote the faith and defend the faith. The second is disciplinarian, it has to do largely with reminding the troops.
We have a legacy to protect, and we must. There must be order and no self-injury. Large parliamentary majorities in The Bahamas through history are inherently unstable. By this third year of the Pindling era, about 1970, the government had split over influence pedalling. In 1977, there was another split over public ethics.
By 1984, it was a commission of inquiry. By 1992, we were done even Hubert Ingraham, who seemed impregnable, the Übermensch, faltered after 1997 over succession. In both Christie administrations, there was internal disaffection over power and succession. In this is our third year, we must keep, therefore, a watchful eye on history. Philip Davis, the present prime minister has kept his coalition of 2021 together.
There’s no reason we can’t keep it that way if we defend the faith, keep discipline or discipline our behaviour, and raise money.
I speak now of the internal chats or repeating memes and videos which while it may appear to be a family matter or an act of political retribution, the injury business means that it becomes self-injury if PLPs are spreading it around. What does it profit us to do so?
The appeal here is to point out that injury to one is injury to all You may not like an individual or think that they should occupy a different space in the party, but we have a different space to deal with that problem other than the public domain.
Let no one fool you over these issues. The FNMs who are creating this stuff know that by infecting our minds with nonsense, they create disease, which will ultimately cause us the election through self-injury. Brothers and Sisters:
When you see this stuff, press, delete and move on, please, please.
Way back in 2017, I gave a speech at the Marathon Constituency just before election day. I warned PLPs: do not vote for the FNM people. People said they were worried about their jobs on the 52-week programme. I told them vote, PLP, and you have no problem.
What did the country do? I must have been speaking Greek at that time. They voted to put the FNM in and within weeks their jobs were gone. On the same night of the election, the police arrested, without cause, an incumbent PLP MP, put him in jail without bail, for the purchase of his own television set.
Bros and sisters, I have seen the past, and I can see one possible vision of the future.
The FNM and its leadership are cruel masters. So be warned against self-injury,
God bless you. God bless the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and remember press delete, and move on. Because across the country today. It’s PLP all the way.
End