EDITOR, The Tribune

One may say or think whatever they wish about the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) but my party has always risen to the internal and external challenges which we have ever encountered. We in the PLP do not give up; despair or break off running. We do not play that. The upcoming general elections will be ours to lose, God forbid.

The fractured Free National Movement (FNM), led by a man who has absolutely squandered his political capital, big time, cannot come together, with credible candidates, in time before the bell is rung. Loretta, once the political darling of the opposition, is now likened to the fabled ‘wicked witch’. Her only hope for re-election and another cabinet post is for her to return, post haste, to the open ranks of the PLP. We will accept her with open arms due to her political roots.

Madam Opposition Leader, however hollow, must come to appreciate and understand that she will never be able to cobble an effective and lasting alliance with those in the fringe political vehicles, for that is all that they are. There is a certain ‘man of God’ who should be leading individuals to ‘salvation’. Now, in his evening hours, he, with all due respect, says that the PLP administration and our tried tested and focused leader, the Rt. Hon. Perry Gladstone Christie, MP, PC (PLP-Farm Road) needs to “go home”.

All of these jokey people have the constitutional and God-given right to adopt the patently bogus positions which they hold dear. It is dead wrong, however, for them to seek to play with the collective heads of the people of our wonderful nation. The PLP administration and several ministers have made serious missteps and perpetuated the sinister and diabolical system of dependency. Mind you, many Bahamians, themselves, have come to accept this as the norm but it destroys and weakens individuals; families and society at large.

The PLP, if you are honest, is truly the best choice now available to the electorate. Yes, many will hold their noses and vote for our party (ala Donald J. Trump and Hilary R. Clinton over in the USA) but, do they have viable alternatives? The FNM is rudderless and the captain and the navigator have gone AWOL. The public infighting and the hurling of acrimonious charges of duplicity; crookedness and abject back stabbing manoeuvres do not lend for public confidence.

The other deluded caucus is hell bent on appearing to present a united front when we all know what time it is and we who are not blind, politically, are able to see the play. They all postulate what they say are agendas for the further development and growth of our wonderful nation. Mind you, they have little or no track record in anything of a public and national nature but they crow: ‘Give us a chance’. In short order the pygmies and fake giants whom we now see, we shall see no more.

The PLP is ready now to come back to the people who will judge us on our record. We have not been perfect or even close to it. Yes, there have been some financial downgrades that should concern us. The Bahamas, however, is poised to restructure our financial base. We know what has to be done to arrest the further societal decline of our wonderful nation. The tasks ahead will not be easy but we ready now. The detractors will hurl attacks against us but we ready now. Others will say that they would be better than us but, we ready now.

All Bahamians who are eligible to vote are urged to register right now after you finish reading this sublime essay. All over this world people are fighting and literally dying to secure the right to vote for a government of their choice. We did not have to go through all of that, thanks be to Jehovah Rafa.

The nation is at the proverbial cross roads.

We have the stark choice to either continue going forward with the PLP or succumb to the tones of Hydra and her nine sisters. We ready now, however, and are eager to let our people know that this time around the next PLP administration will focus, almost exclusively, on the economic empowerment of all Bahamians and those societal issues which vex us all. To God then, in all things, be the glory.

ORTLAND H. BODIE JR.

Nassau,

January 21, 2017.