Other observers who hold this view suggest that Prime Minister the Hon. Perry G. Christie and his team have been so mesmerised by the magnitude of the tasks they face, that they have opted for strategies which call for talk about action, rather than decisive action itself. These critics cite as evidence the mandates given any number of Commissions. They also take note of the administrationﾴs resort to rhetoric and promise, whenever they are pressed about a specific matter.
What makes the issues at hand so interesting, is the fact that they come a year and a half after the Progressive Liberal Partyﾴs great victory of May 2, 2002. Its ringing shout of help and hope then echoed loudly throughout The Bahamas.
The reality today is that the country is in the midst of a crunching fiscal crisis. The means that a part of the problem the administration faces is due to the great mismatch between what was promised and what can be delivered.
Another more insidious aspect of the matter at hand is that the current administration seems unable to admit to itself that these are actually had times. Instead, there is the suggestion that there are elements and forces in the current administration who seem to be working on the assumption that things will somehow turn out just right and right on time. This kind of wishful thinking is totally inadequate. In the face of crisis, focused leadership is essential.
In this regard, it does no one in the current administration any good to compare and contrast their leaderﾴs persona and performance with any other leaderﾴs demeanour, deportment and track record. It is also, practically speaking, of no real importance to note what some other leader in some other time might have done in similar circumstances. What is needed right now is for those who have been given the mandate, to get on with the business given them to conduct on behalf of the Bahamian people.
For our part, we daresay that Prime Minister Christie and his team will not and cannot get high marks for their commission approach to governance, if these operations do not bear fruit quickly. Having decided to study everything and talk about everything for as long as possible, the current administration has itself delayed decision-making, in matters great and small.
While no reasonable person can successfully refute the argument that decisions should be grounded in logic, fact and experience, there are surely occasions when policy action can and should be based on vision and principle. At this juncture, there is a live possibility that the current administration will come to grief, if it neglects to act more forcefully and with greater focus.
As the current administration tries to grapple with any number of priorities and issues, it is coming in for a barrage of withering criticism. Some of this torrent of complaint is coming from expected quarters. Indeed, there are detractors of the government who are of the view that the Progressive Liberal Party is incapable of doing good, or thinking straight about anything.
In this league of carping critics would be a specialised sub-set of complainers and naysayers who would blame Prime Minister, the Hon. Perry Christie for all of his administrationﾴs woes. Interestingly, many of these critics held the former prime minister up for the same kind of criticism, and ridicule. These kinds of approaches to the matter of governance are little more than caricatures of a more complex reality.
As we have suggested ﾖ time and again ﾖ the Bahamas is caught up in a world economy over which it wields little or no control. In other words, politicians have precious little room for manoeuvre, thus the constraints on policy-making. This is the reality faced by the current administration. It was also the facts as they were for the Free National Movement when it held the reins of government. As it was in the waning days of the former government, so is it today for the current regime. The only difference this time around is that the economy is in grave distress.
Editor, The Bahama Journal
