Bahamas PM Davis guides ruling party to victory in general elections

Prime Min­is­ter Philip Davis guid­ed his rul­ing Pro­gres­sive Lib­er­al Par­ty (PLP) to a record sec­ond con­sec­u­tive term in of­fice af­ter it swept Tues­day’s gen­er­al elec­tion, which he had called ahead of the con­sti­tu­tion­al dead­line.

No po­lit­i­cal par­ty has ever formed the gov­ern­ment for two con­sec­u­tive terms since 1997, when Hu­bert In­gra­ham led the then rul­ing Free Na­tion­al Move­ment (FNM) to vic­to­ry af­ter top­pling the PLP in 1992.

Davis had guid­ed his PLP to pow­er in the Sep­tem­ber 16, 2021 gen­er­al elec­tion, win­ning 32 of the 39 seats.

While the Par­lia­men­tary Reg­is­tra­tion De­part­ment (PRD) is yet to re­lease the full re­sults, the PLP is on sched­ule to win an­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant ma­jor­i­ty in the 41 seat par­lia­ment, with the FNM leader, Michael Pin­tard con­ced­ing that “the re­sult was not what we had hoped for.”

Among the ca­su­al­ties of the elec­tion is for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr. Hu­bert Min­nis, who con­test­ed the elec­tion as an in­de­pen­dent can­di­date for the Kil­lar­ney seat af­ter the FNM de­cid­ed against sup­port­ing his can­di­da­ture.

Min­nis, who has rep­re­sent­ed the west­ern New Prov­i­dence con­stituen­cy (Kil­lar­ney) since 2007, be­came the first Ba­hami­an prime min­is­ter to con­test an elec­tion as an in­de­pen­dent, say­ing his de­ci­sion was dri­ven by a be­lief that there is still work to be done for the coun­try.

The elec­tion was seen as a straight fight be­tween the two main po­lit­i­cal par­ties, but the Coali­tion of In­de­pen­dents (COI)—par­tic­u­lar­ly its leader, Lin­coln Bain—al­most de­fied the odds in at least one seat, the Pinewood con­stituen­cy.

Davis told sup­port­ers that the re­sults of the elec­tions will “take time” but he was grate­ful that the Ba­hami­an peo­ple had made their choice.

“To­day, the Ba­hami­an peo­ple chose progress. Yes. To­day, the Ba­hami­an peo­ple chose to move for­ward. For­ward with our plans. For­ward with our team, and for­ward with my lead­er­ship,” Davis said.

“For all your trust and faith in our vi­sion, we thank you. We thank you for shar­ing our con­fi­dence that to­geth­er we can con­tin­ue to build a bet­ter Ba­hamas,” Davis said, adding that he knew Ba­hami­ans had vot­ed be­cause of their love for the coun­try.

“You vot­ed be­cause you be­lieve that to­geth­er we can make some of the big changes that will ful­fil the am­bi­tions we share for our Ba­hamas. We all want a coun­try that has more op­por­tu­ni­ties. A coun­try where safe­ty and pros­per­i­ty be­long to all Ba­hami­ans.

“We want a coun­try in which all of you and your chil­dren and your grand­chil­dren will thrive. We have promised you much, and I promise you with every bone in my body and every beat in my heart, we will do all that we can to de­liv­er.”

But he ac­knowl­edged that this is a mis­sion which can­not be un­der­tak­en alone.

“All that we have achieved so far is be­cause you joined us in part­ner­ship. It is be­cause of your ef­forts, your dri­ve, and your de­ter­mi­na­tion that our coun­try has come this far. I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing that part­ner­ship, and in do­ing so, ex­ceed all our ex­pec­ta­tions.”

Davis said that it will take time be­fore the fi­nal of­fi­cial num­bers come in, but it is clear that a fair num­ber of Ba­hami­ans chose not to ex­er­cise their right to vote.

The PRD had said that a record 209,264 peo­ple had been reg­is­tered to vote for the 138 can­di­dates and Davis said that in the re­gion and around the world, par­tic­i­pa­tion in elec­tions is de­clin­ing.

“So, this is not good, and this is not good for the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic fab­ric of our so­ci­ety. We must do all that we can to en­sure that every Ba­hami­an in every elec­tion feels that their vote counts.”

“My friends, it takes a vil­lage to bring us to this mo­ment. We have so many to thank. First of all, to God be the glo­ry. Let us give thanks to Almighty God for all the great things he has done.”

He al­so thanked his con­stituents as well as the PLP “fam­i­ly” adding that he had re­ceived a phone call from the FNM leader con­grat­u­lat­ing him on the vic­to­ry.

“I thanked him for his gra­cious­ness in do­ing so. It takes courage to put your name on the bal­lot. It is eas­i­er to sit on the side­lines and crit­i­cise than it is to climb in­to the are­na your­self. So, I’d like to say to every can­di­date of every par­ty, your par­tic­i­pa­tion in the process made our democ­ra­cy stronger.

“To Ba­hami­ans who vot­ed to­day but did not vote for us, I want you to know I’ve lis­tened to you, I’ve heard you, and I want you to know that I will con­tin­ue to work hard for all Ba­hami­ans as I’ve sought to do these past years.

“Tonight is a po­lit­i­cal vic­to­ry, but tru­ly, this is tru­ly a vic­to­ry for the whole coun­try,” Davis said, adding that “for the first time in al­most a gen­er­a­tion, we have a his­toric op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“Let us make the most of it.I will be­gin our sec­ond term as I be­gan the first, with a hum­ble spir­it and with a heart full of grat­i­tude. Thank you for your trust and faith in me. I will not let you down. I will not let you down.”

In con­ced­ing de­feat, Pin­tard praised the young peo­ple who vot­ed FNM for the first time, adding “you stood in line and cast a bal­lot for the Ba­hamas you be­lieved in.

“That is some­thing sig­nif­i­cant. That’s every­thing. Do not let any­one tell you oth­er­wise. To the Ba­hami­ans who have been with the FNM since the days of suc­cess…those who vot­ed in every elec­tion since 1972, who’ve watched vic­to­ries and watched loss­es, and who is sit­ting tonight won­der­ing if the long road was worth it, I say to you that it was.”

Pin­tard, who eas­i­ly won his seat in the gen­er­al elec­tion, said that the Ba­hamas is freer, “more ac­count­able, more hon­est, be­cause of every vot­er who spoke tonight and in oth­er elec­tions.

“We want you to hold up your head tonight. You did not lose. The work sim­ply con­tin­ues. To the can­di­date who went to bed be­liev­ing that he or she would wake up as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and have to face dif­fer­ent re­sults, we want you to know that we see you,” he added. —NAS­SAU, Ba­hamas (CMC)