NASSAU, Bahamas, CMC – The main opposition Free National Movement (FNM) says if it forms the government after the May 12 general election, it will ensure there is a fixed date for general elections in The Bahamas.
“This nonsense of one man or one woman as prime minister, being able to wake up one day and decide, ‘This is when I will call an election,’ that day should be a day of the past. We should have a fixed election day to give predictability to the system,” FNM leader, Michael Piintard, told supporters in Freeport, Grand Bahama.
Pintard was critical of the Phillip Davis administration and officials at the Parliamentary Registration Department over what he termed the poor organization of the advanced poll last Thursday.
“I’m offering a firm commitment that under my leadership, we will go in a different direction,” Pintard said.
“We should have an independent parliamentary registrar to oversee the elections across our country and to ensure efficiency, fairness, and transparency. As politicians, if we have to pick the friendlies to bring them out of retirement to preside over the process, then we are more interested in us remaining in power rather than democracy working for our people,” Pintard said, adding “we are not about playing the games that the PLP (Progressive Liberal Party) are busy playing”.
In a statement, the Parliamentary Registration Department (PRD) acknowledged there had been problems during the advanced poll, saying “we recognize that while we had an operational plan in place, there were some challenges that arose and we want to assure the public that we have already begun taking action to improve the voting process on May 12th.
It said that at several locations, “extended wait times and long lines affected the flow of the voting process, recognizing that “many Bahamians expected a smoother experience, especially elder voters who waited for long hours to exercise their right to vote”.
The Department said that the “turnout was unprecedented” and that ‘this is the first time in Bahamian history that this number of persons has participated in the Advance Poll.
‘While operation plans were in place, the volume exceeded projections and placed pressure on processing times and logistics across several polling stations.
“The Parliamentary Registration Department remains focused on ensuring that all necessary provisions are in place for May 12, so that every eligible voter can cast their ballot in an orderly and efficient manner”.
Pintard said that some of the senior citizens were in wheelchairs and had to wait “ three hours, four hours later, had tears in their eyes as they waited to vote.
“Let me put it in context. We weren’t talking about 5,000 people in one location. In some cases, it was as little as 900. I’m told in some it was less. Yet, people had to wait for many hours to vote.
“If you don’t have the full picture of it, there are some people who passed out, waiting in the heat. Despite handing out umbrellas to as many people as we could, it was still a sad sight.
“If this were only incompetence, a lack of ability to carry out a function that we’ve been carrying out for decades, that alone should disqualify the PLP from presiding over this country. Not one of them, that I’ve heard, came to apologize, for the persons who built this country, whose shoulders we stand, for them suffering the inconvenience and indignity of waiting in the heat to make a key decision,” the FNM leader said.
Pintard said the ruling party should be worried because people who are motivated and wait in long lines in the sun to vote usually don’t vote for the government of the day.
“So, I want to ask every senior, every disabled person who waited and tried to wait, or every mother who had obligations for children at home but was in that line for hours: Is this an example of a government that is showing progress in our electoral process?”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Davis has told PLP supporters that the country has done well under his stewardship, citing, for example, last week’s opening of the Arthur’s Town airport on Cat Island as evidence of progress on the island, where he has served as MP for decades.
“I’m not a boastful person, but I think everyone on this island, everyone who played a part in making that airport a reality, we all deserve to take a moment, stand back and say, Look at what we did.
“That’s progress, the kind of progress you can touch and feel and experience every day, the kind of progress that is just the beginning, that we can build on to continue to make life better,” Davis said.
In the last general election, the PLP won 32 of the 39 seats, with the remainder going to the FNM.
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