By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Cabinet minister Tennyson Wells said yesterday that the Free National Movement has set a “bad precedent” by asking leadership contenders to fund the party’s upcoming convention.

Taking issue with the apparent “pay to play” environment, Mr Wells suggested that nominations for the party’s leadership positions should now be closed so that late entrants are not allowed to get a free ride.

“It appears to me that if you want to run for leader you have to pay,” he said, “so based on that, apart from Loretta and Minnis running for leader and Sands and Turnquest for deputy, that nobody should be allowed to run because they didn’t pay and the council should ensure that is the case.”

“If that is what has to happen, then if Mr Joe Blow wanted to go and run for leader and just come to convention, he should pay at least one-third of that $200,000,” the former FNM MP said.

“It sets a bad precedent,” he said. “It excludes the average person who may want to run for leader.”

Mr Wells called for an amendment to the party’s constitution that would establish a nomination deadline, to ensure that nominees are made public well ahead of a convention.

“How is it that the top five offices of the party, nominees can’t be vetted or the public can’t know who they are until election convenes? Everywhere else in the world, the general public knows who is vying for president or prime minister beforehand and they give a date when a nomination closes before election.”

Mr Wells added: “I think when you look at and analyse, that is how they control it. They (nominees) should be vetted . . . how it is now, they go there, nominate the day, nobody knows until the night, then the next morning they vote.

“It’s the most ridiculous system and cannot be justified in the modern society.”

Leadership challenger Long Island MP Loretta Butler-Turner and incumbent Leader Dr Hubert Minnis were each asked to raise $100,000 to fund the FNM’s national convention on July 27 to 29. The convention is estimated to cost the party $350,000, with the party’s finance committee tasked with raising the remaining $150,000.

Mrs Butler-Turner has described the request as unprecedented and troubling, adding that it invoked doubts of whether the party will be able to launch a successful election campaign.

Yesterday, Mr Wells maintained that funding for the convention was the responsibility of the party’s finance committee, adding that while it was not unusual for members to donate, it should not be mandated. He recalled how former FNM Leader Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield mortgaged his house to keep the party afloat in 1976, and even in that instance, funds were channelled through the finance committee.

He dismissed concerns that the convention funding debacle indicated a future struggle for the party’s general election campaign.

“When this convention is over,” he added, “don’t mind all the talk, all of these people saying they won’t fund or help, they will flock to assist because they know the government needs to be changed.”

Mr Wells resigned from the FNM in 1999 and later became an independent representative for Bamboo Town. Recently he has been a vocal supporter of Dr Minnis.