NASSAU, Bahamas, CMC – Prime Minister Philip Davis is urging Bahamians not to use politics as an avenue to destroy the country, and also to reject the belief that a country must be torn apart so somebody can claim victory over what is left.
Bahamians go to the polls on May 12 to elect a new government, with the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) facing a challenge from the main opposition Free National Movement (FNM).
Speaking at the Zion Union Baptist Convention Annual Session, Prime Minister Davis said that politics must never become a reason to despise one another, nor must it be used to “persuade us that winning matters more than who we become in the process”.
Davis said that there are those so hungry for power that they would leave a country wounded, bitter, and broken, so long as they get to sit at the top of the rubble.
“There are voices that will poison the public square, scar the national spirit, and set citizen against citizen if they believe it serves their ambition. We must reject that spirit. We must reject the politics of ashes.
“We must reject the belief that a country must be torn apart so somebody can claim victory over what is left. The Bahamas is our home. This sweet chain of islands is our inheritance,” he said, adding that the country holds the memory of those who came before.
“So we must be careful how we speak about The Bahamas. We must be careful how we speak about one another. A people who curse themselves long enough may begin to believe the curse.
“A people who tear at each other long enough may forget how to heal. People who make contempt a habit may one day wake up and find that they have handed their children a colder country than the one they received. That must never be our legacy.”
Prime Minister Davis said that after election day, everyone has to live together.
“We still have to see each other in church. We still have to meet at the grocery store. We still have to work side by side. We still have to raise children in the same neighborhoods. We still have to bury loved ones, celebrate milestones, rebuild after storms, and pray for the future under the same Bahamian sky.”
Davis said he is urging the country to “resist the temptation to win at all costs.
“Let us resist language that wounds too deeply. Let us resist the urge to treat fellow Bahamians as enemies because they wear a different color or hold a different view. Let us resist the dark satisfaction that can come from mockery, humiliation, and public cruelty.
Those things may stir a crowd for a moment. They can never build a nation.”
Davis said that real leadership remembers that the office one seeks must never become smaller than the behavior used to gain it.
“I want to do my part to keep the country steady in this hour. I will defend what I believe. I will make my case to the Bahamian people. I will stand on record, on principle, and on vision,” he said, adding, “yet I will also work to keep the temperature of our public life from rising beyond repair.
“Because a Prime Minister must do more than answer critics. A Prime Minister must help hold a nation together. That is the duty of leadership. The church understands this better than most. Scripture teaches us that the tongue has power. ”
Prime Minister Davis said the race before the country “is larger than ballots and banners.
“It is the race to keep this country decent. It is the race to keep our public life from coarsening beyond recognition. It is the race to preserve a Bahamas where strong conviction can still live beside grace, where competition can still live beside love of country, and where the struggle for office never becomes an excuse to wound the nation itself.
“And let us remember this, too. This election will come and go. Campaigns will rise and fall. Crowds will gather and then fade. Headlines will change. Arguments will pass. The date of May 12 will arrive, and it will leave.
“Yet above every campaign, above every party, above every earthly contest, there remains one unchanging truth: regardless of what happens after May 12, God is on the throne…when the crowd cheers…when the count is finished…in victory…in disappointment.
“God is on the throne before the first vote is cast, and God will still be on the throne after the last ballot is counted,” he added.
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