EDITOR, The Tribune.

After reading the National Review in Monday’s paper in which Mr Christie suggested he might stay on and lead the PLP at the next general elections if Hubert Ingraham returned to front line politics, I called Mr Ingraham.

Just like when he was in office, the former prime minister answered his own phone. I asked for his reaction to Mr Christie’s statement in the newspaper. After a hearty laugh, Mr Ingraham told me that he “doesn’t plant his corn by anybody else’s rain, maybe Mr Christie does”; whatever that means. Then he said that he had recently told Prime Minister Christie while in church and within earshot of both BJ Nottage and Tommy Turnquest, that he (Christie) should stop lying to the PLP telling them that he needs to stay on because Ingraham is coming back and he (Christie) is the best man to keep him out. He said he told Mr Christie that he should be a man and stand up on his own two feet and tell them that he had changed his mind and that he was not going anywhere.

It looks like Mr Christie isn’t man enough to take Mr Ingraham’s advice.

In any case, Mr Christie has a safeguard that will allow him to stay as leader of the PLP for as long as he wants. Since he was first elected Leader of the PLP, Mr Christie has stacked the odds of his remaining as Leader of the Party in his favour by appointing more than a thousand of his political allies as PLP Stalwart Counsellors who are eligible to vote in elections for Party Leader.

During Sir Lynden’s time the PLP had less than 150 Stalwart Counsellors. Mr Christie has increased that number to more than 1600 – four times more than the regular elected delegates from each constituency. These Stalwart Counsellors are personally grateful to Mr Christie and they blindly support him. By comparison, the FNM have 60 Meritorious Council Members.

Dr BJ Nottage had to come to terms with this when he rejoined the PLP in 2002. In time, Fred Mitchell, Obie Wilchcombe, Shane Gibson, Jerome Fitzgerald and Brave Davis will also learn to accept it. Simply put, if Perry Christie wants to remain as leader of the PLP, he will – for as long as he pleases, and nobody, including Hubert Ingraham, will have anything to do with it.

MARGARET COOPER,

Nassau,

February 4, 2014.