During this past week Prime Minister Perry Christie has made many nonsensical gaffs, some bone fide mental ‘farts’ excepted of him but then there were those that seemed to be ‘designed’ to distract from the comments made by Dr. Hubert Minnis, Leader of the Opposition Free National Movement (FNM), which highlighted the short comings of the government in its preparedness of the onslaught of Hurricane Mathew, especially after the ‘teachable moments’ of Hurricane Joaquin just one year before. A storm that many islands are going to take some time to recover from as they struggle to get essential services back up and running; even parts of the capital, New Providence especially areas such as Farm Road and Centerville, represented by the Rt. Hon. Perry G. Christie, Prime Minister face such challenges, a fact that the Prime Minister claimed not to be aware of up until a few days ago.

“PM urges FNM’s to resist Minnis” – The Tribune; October 20 2016

Excerpt from this article; “Prime Minister Perry Christie yesterday sent strong message to side lined Free National Movement MP’s Richard Lightbourn and Hubert Chipman to ‘resist all of your might’ any attempt by the party’s leadership to end their careers.

Mr. Christie told the MP’s, both of whom have not been offered a re-nomination, that no one person should be able to dictate whether their political careers were finished, adding that the decision should come from the electorate.

He accused Opposition Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis of keeping the pair in the dark on nonpartisan hurricane relief efforts organized for their constituencies. A move he attributed to Dr. Minnis’ political agenda during his closing remarks in the House of Assembly yesterday.

Mr. Chipman represents St. Anne’s and Mr. Lightbourn represents Montagu.

Mr. Christie said ‘The intention was to put you in a position where your constituents would have seen you delivering of supplies, information, doing all the things you should do.  The intention was to strengthen the delivery services in the country.

‘I directed NEMA, based on personal experience, that every member of the Parliament should have a new team assembled, a multifaceted, [a] multidisciplinary team assembled, and to call the leader of the Opposition to advise.

Say ‘strong message’; I say a message of a coward and a failure being used to simply distract the electorate from his failings as out lined in Dr. Hubert Minnis’ criticism of the Prime Minister and his government in the aftermath of Hurricane Mathew.

“I thought the government dropped the ball in dealing with the storm.

‘The precautionary methods were not taken’

‘The government knew the storm was coming’

‘How can you afterwards be asking for trucks, volunteers etc.?  All of that should have been done in advance.’

‘You knew the storm was coming, you knew the strength of the storm; you knew the potential damage; you knew what was going to happen to the south. And therefore they should have already had trucks, chainsaws, garbage bins, dumpsters all lined up to deal with [the aftermath] appropriately.”

Can the government really be this small-minded and petty after having their obvious short comings pointed out to them?

Whatever happened to ‘teachable moments’?

With this being said, the Prime Minister’s statements on the affairs of the Free National Movement (FNM) are asinine at best; to put it gently, in light of what he said and what he thinks he is actually addressing.

There is some confusion in the Prime Minister’s ‘strong message’, and I am not at all surprised.  First he suggests the “PM’s should not allow the party leadership to end their career’ but then goes on to say that not ‘one person’ should be able to dictate whether their political careers were finished, I now understand fully why the Prime Minister feels he is the only person that can run  his party; keep all others at bay!  First of all, the leadership of the Free National Movement is not one person, but it would seem that this is the way of the Progressive Liberal Party; the question then becomes, who is actually leading this party; in control of it, because it is obvious that is not its elected leader, so why should he even fathom the thought of meddling in the affairs of another political organization when his ‘home’ is in disarray and there are many matters for him to attend to and by the way the Sandals matter is back.

The Prime Minister accused Dr. Minnis of keeping these two PM’s in ‘the dark’; only these two were kept in the dark?  This allegation within itself is nonsensical, stupid and beyond amazing but then when you as Prime Minister and a member of parliament, been able to keep your very own constituency in the dark; literally and figuratively, then we come to understand the mindset of such gross deception.

The Prime Minister has suggested to these two members of parliament, whom have served with distinction for quite some time, contest democracy, as he openly does; using it at this convenience and then there are those that buy into such a distorted sense of reality, this only adds to the rapid decline and decay of democracy.

And just to go on record, I strongly recommend that the Progressive Liberal Party rejects Perry Christie as leader of the party at your next convention if it ever comes about, as he mean no good for that party nor the country at large.

The Progressive Liberal Party fails for one reason, it is their nature.

END