By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

IN the face of allegations of corruption while in office and a lack of unity on the way forward, former Progressive Liberal Party Cabinet minister Loftus Roker said yesterday the party was in “as worst a state as it has ever been.”

The Pindling era politician said he has watched with great angst the “slow, but public” demise of the PLP, saying people have had enough of “arrogant, know it all attitudes” displayed by members for much of the last 10 to 12 years.

He predicted this could be the end of the “great PLP” if the party does not return to its original message of 1967.

“This is a new low, my friend,” Mr Roker told The Tribune when asked for comment on the recent accusations levelled at the previous Christie administration.

“There were days of gloom, but never days of this sort of doom. I don’t think we have ever been to this degree before, but it didn’t happen overnight. We have been creeping in this direction for some time now,” the former immigration minister added.

Since losing the May 10 general election, the former administration has been dogged by allegations of misfeasance and wrongdoing.

Of the ordeals, Mr Roker on Monday said the “pompous and condescending attitudes” by PLP officials had pushed the public to a point where it could no longer “suck it up and go ahead with business as usual.”

“Are you kidding me, there were candidates going to persons and asking them for support, the same persons who in years past would seek and get support just to look at the people and tell them, ‘Settle down, I know what is best for you, you don’t.’ You can’t be serious.

“To a man hurting every day, that kind of attitude is hurtful. To a man hurting every day, that kind of attitude comes across as disrespect and a shove in the face. That is what it was, and after years and years of that, it pushed the party’s base as far away from the party as it had ever been.

“Check the record,” Mr Roker continued.

“When this party got started, it was done so on the back of the common people. They had the idea that the movement was their movement and the fight was their fight, because it was.

“This group over the last dozen or so years, flipped that. It became a movement of, ‘Leave it to us, we know how to govern, leave us to it because we know what is best.’”

According to Mr Roker, this shift in “political values” disenfranchised many of the country’s working class and inner-city voters—sections of the country that often supported the PLP.

Mr Roker said that this, when added to the country’s bleak economic outlook, high crime and education issues gave voters very little to “admire when headed to the polls.”

“They had nothing to vote for, nothing positive at least, and the one thing you could have depended on, the PLP being the party of the people, you took that flipped it completely. By the time we got to May 10, it became, ‘the PLP, the party against Bahamians.’”

The Free National Movement won 35 out of 39 seats in the House of Assembly on May 10, wiping out the incumbent Christie administration.

The PLP only captured one seat in New Providence and was driven out of many of its strongholds including Centreville, which was represented by former Prime Minister Perry Christie for 40 years.

“Look at the results, my friend, people who loved and revered this party all of their lives pushed to a point of no return,” Mr Roker told The Tribune.

“You had mothers who were raised in the PLP way, tell their children not to vote for the party. You had fathers who earned a living under the PLP, encourage their kids to look for a better option.

“To top it off, you had people that were sure in their minds that the FNM had little to nothing to offer say, ‘I rather go with the unknown before I give the PLP another chance.’

“So when I listen and look at what is happening today, I’m concerned by the state of the party because you have members who are still refusing to come around on their failures; they are refusing to make amends and some are refusing to make the necessary corrections.

“The PLP has to get back to the party’s original message, that 1967 message and regain the faith of the people; if not, I hate to say it, but this could be the end of the once great PLP.”

Earlier this month, George Smith, another former Pindling era Cabinet minister suggested the “cocky, arrogant and dismissive” attitudes of the Christie administration MPs were to blame for their defeat on May 10.

Mr Smith said he believes the PLP should seek forgiveness from the Bahamian people, and not continue to make excuses and blame others for the party’s loss at the polls.

His comments were in line with those by Exuma and Ragged Island MP Chester Cooper, who in a recent speech before the PLP’s National Progressive Institute, said the party lost the recent election because it ignored scandals and condoned behaviour it should not have.

Mr Cooper also said the party lost touch with the people it sought to help.

According to The Tribune’s analysis of the official election results, the PLP received 37 per cent of votes counted in the 2017 election, at least 11 per cent fewer than what it received in 2012.