As year end approaches, and a new one beckons, Prime Minister, The Honourable Perry G. Christie is facing the test of a lifetime. With his administration beset and beleaguered from within and without, the Prime Ministerﾴs mettle, resolve, courage and wisdom are all being put to the test. His diehard critics are already writing him off.
As he knows, there is a powerful truth in the maxim that uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Today, therefore, as he faces challenge after challenge, he is also being obliged to fend off an old allegation and slur that he is a consummate ﾑdo-nothingﾴ man. One variation on this theme says that because he is a so-called ﾑdo-nothingﾴ man, he can be blamed for nothing.
While his critics have every right to say what they like, serious analysts take a more nuanced approach to the matter concerning Mr. Christieﾴs leadership style. Many of them are convinced that the Christie persona is far more complex than the one-dimensional portrait painted by the ﾑdo-nothingﾴ perspective.
With a view towards shaping and sharing a truer version of what Mr. Christie and his administration are about, we proffer the thesis that the ﾓNewﾔ Progressive Liberal Party ﾖ under the leadership of Perry Gladstone Christie ﾖ must be viewed (if it is to be properly understood) through a lens which would subject it to fair comparison and contrast with its predecessor in office, namely that of the Rt. Honourable Hubert A Ingraham and a free National Movement organization which he led for more than a decade.
Today, some eighteen months into the Christie administration, fruitful comparisons, can be made between the two regimes. Take for example, the widely mooted complaint that the Christie government apparently has a woefully lacking legislative agenda; or that it is currently facing any number of challenges on the industrial front; or for that matter, its ministers are often overbearing, ill-informed or lazy.
What emerges from a dispassionate review of both administrations, is that one governed in buoyant economic times; while the other is trying to run things in a season where hard times are the order of the day; when they no longer have the option of padding the public service with any number of cronies and carpetbaggers. From one point of view, therefore, there is a strong argument to be made that the arrival of a new government has not amounted to a break with business as usual approach to doing things.
There is one area where the Christie administration seemed to be breaking with tradition, namely in the creation of any number of Commissions. There is already an emerging consensus that there is too much talk, and too little action coming from these. In other words, Commissions are good ideas gone wrong. This does not say, however, that they should be dismissed out of hand.
Prime Minister Christie should take to heart the admonition that his administration is far too under-active in the conduct of its affairs; and that there is a growing perception that it is allowing itself to drift. Interestingly, where the Christie team is currently perceived as being under-active, its predecessor in office was widely seen as being hyperactive.
As we vividly recall, in the Free National Movementﾴs second term, there was every indication that former Prime Minister The Rt. Honourable Hubert A. Ingraham was a man in a hurry. He had an extensive social agenda, an ambitious economic plan; and an aggressive approach to dealing with a proposal to amend the Constitution.
There is a tantalizing argument to the effect that that had it not been for the 911 disasters, he might have succeeded. But since life is not about what could have or should have happened, and is about realities, the truth of the matter is that where Mr. Ingraham and the Free National Movement fell, that is where the Progressive Liberal Party found its feet and ran away with the prize.
Quite clearly, that was not enough. Once given the mandate, they have to perform. If they fail, the baton will be passed to others. This, again, is how the political game is played in a democracy.
Our view is that Mr. Christie needs to speed up the tempo in his administration; bring a greater semblance of order to his legislative agenda; clean house; and otherwise, whip his crew into shape.
Having already proven that he was no lightweight by first, becoming PLP leader and second, by becoming Prime Minister, Mr. Christie now has only one remaining task, which is to prove that he can confound his critics by indisputably ﾑrunning thingsﾴ.
So, while some of his more rabid critics have already written him off, Mr. Christie may yet beat the odds, confound his critics, and beat back the naysayers. He has done it before.
Editorial, The Bahama Journal
