By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Deputy Chief Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Perry Christie said yesterday there is a very “tenuous line” between the manifestation of “hatred” and “violence” while admonishing Bahamians that “we must all live together” after next month’s general election.

Expressing concern over “serious” division among voters, Mr Christie suggested that the actions of some political groupings will do nothing to connect citizens, but instead only amount to a “confrontation”.

He said it is up to Bahamians to understand the workings of the country’s democracy, which allows everyone to choose who they would like to represent them, and for politicians on the losing end to accept their fate.

These remarks were not part of the Prime Minister’s prepared speech, which he said would “take too much intellectual fortitude” to read during the commissioning ceremony of the Public Hospitals Authority and Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre’s Community Counselling and Assessment Centre, a newly renovated $950,000 facility on Collins Avenue at the former Ministry of Sports building.

“We must avoid in our country some of the serious things that I am observing when it comes to division,” Mr Christie said yesterday. “Politics in small countries has to be managed properly.

“Hubert Ingraham and I tried to manage it properly. We happen to have been law partners and shared a lot of assets together, so there’s an understanding that you have to be civilised notwithstanding strong criticisms of each other.

“But I want to express a concern, it has to do with mental health, that there is a very tenuous line between the manifestation of hatred and violence and we must exercise the greatest care of citizens of our country to ensure that we set a standard for our democracy, which has demonstrated that change can take place and take place fluidly from one to the other.

“We must exercise the greatest care because if you jump into my yard as they have done and tear down my posters as they have done, what do you expect me to do? That is the average person.

“And when you have me pulling down yours and you pulling down mine what do you expect to happen? At some stage, a confrontation. And what do you expect to happen when there is confrontation?”

He continued: “So we have to recognise that when the Bishop of the Anglican Church spoke out, other church leaders must speak out, other leaders and civic leaders must speak out also because we have too much of a wonderful country with a wonderful reputation outside of this country.

“We’re making too many advances as a country not to recognise the care we ought to exercise and that no matter how much we feel that there should be change, at the end of the day we must remember we must all live together after it takes place. That is the point I thought I should make.

“We are a family as a country and the best form of mental health is to understand what that means. There is more that connects us than divides us and we must understand the workings of our democracy. It is meant to give people the best choice at a certain time to make whatever decision they make and then for those of us who are on the losing side to accept it and move on because that’s what our country is like and what it should be like,” Mr Christie also said.

Mr Christie went on to admit that given the resources available, there is more that can be done for people in the country. He pointed to a scenario that he came across while campaigning, in which among several people living in one household, only one individual was employed.

“As a political leader I speak to it. There is anguish, there is bewilderment and anguish. And bewilderment not known, not identified, not counselled on, just continues to develop into (mental illness).”

He added that he is “worried” that unless the country can introduce an effective healthy lifestyles programme, the Bahamas will have a tough time dealing with sick residents.

Earlier this week, Reverend Laish Boyd, Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands, denounced the “gutter politics and venom” associated with the general election, charging that the practice could hinder upstanding persons seeking to offer themselves for public office in the future.

In a pastoral letter to his parishioners and the nation over the current election cycle, Bishop Boyd said he is “personally horrified” at the “terrible practice of denigrating and maligning others” by “unscrupulous opponents” in the political realm, which he said ultimately discourages “some decent people” from wanting to serve.

The letter, released on Monday, comes amid an election cycle that has already been marred by verbal jousting between political parties, and at least one confirmed physical altercation between supporters of two of the country’s major political parties, the PLP and the FNM.

There has also been name-calling. In March, FNM Leader Dr Hubert Minnis dubbed Prime Minister Perry Christie “Cotton Candy Christie” while insinuating that Mr Christie’s soft policies have contributed to Grand Bahama’s economic hardships. He has repeated the nickname over the past few weeks.

In January, PLP Chairman Bradley Roberts criticised Dr Minnis’ and the FNM’s new slate of candidates to contest the upcoming election, charging that Dr Minnis’ selection of “hapless, perennial losers and visionless personalities” gave the impression that he rummaged through former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham’s “political junkyard or graveyard” to salvage what he termed a “political scrap gang.”

Despite also calling those FNM candidates “bad and unfit” to run in the impending election, Mr Roberts later called for “peace and calm” during this election season, adding that “we can disagree without being disagreeable or insulting” each other.

• Mental health of the Nation: click HERE