The Politically Immature and Thuggish Lincoln Bain

Mr. Lincoln Bain, Your childish apologies have become meaningless, weak, and lack substance

Mr Lincoln Bain, refrain from violence.  Focus on substance over spectacle, and let your vision for The Bahamas speak for itself

By Maria Russell
Freeport, G.B. Island, The Bahamas
In response to Tribune242 FaceBook Post,  Pintard Condems Lincoln Bain...

I'm not taking sides, but bullying, intimidation, and fear have no place in a democracy.  That was not the time and place.  It only takes away from the message of the protest.  These silly antics are a turn-off on all levels.  Mr. Pintard has nothing to prove.  He's already a Member of Parliament and the Official Opposition Leader by law as outlined in our constitution.

Mr. Bain, you, on the other hand, have a lot to prove to the Bahamian people, especially if you're serious and ready for mainstream politics.  To get into parliament, one would think that maturity, political sportsmanship, and a willingness to engage in respectful dialogue would be essential.  If you two have a personal beef, maybe it would be wise to settle it out of the political spectrum.

You don't want to be known more for your radicalism than your message.  Having the loudest mouth is unnecessary and a turn-off.  Your apologies will become meaningless, weak, and lack substance.  Antics and polarization won't get you elected.  Empathy and humility will.

Refrain from violence.  Focus on substance over spectacle, and let your vision for the country speak for itself.  If the populace is to take you seriously, you must demonstrate leadership worthy of representing the Bahamas both domestically and internationally.  Your actions will be scrutinized globally, so it's crucial to maintain a level of maturity and statesmanship.  Anything less, undermines your message and credibility.

Source / Comment

Bahamas: ...the Bahamian democratic experience and the rationale underpinning parliamentary democracy in The Islands

Celebrating the Bahamian democratic experience

Front Porch

By Simon

Nassau, The Bahamas

Nassau, N.P., The Bahamas - Some of the frustrations with our political life are understandable, many of which are shared by those in frontline politics who daily manage the complex matters of state with which most of us would prefer not to contend.

Parliamentary debates are sometimes sterile and unimaginative.  The lack of preparation by some parliamentarians is an embarrassment for themselves and those they represent.

Yet, we need to place our frustrations within context, historically and geographically.   Familiarity often breeds contempt.  Yet, it is unfamiliarity with our parliamentary system that has bred contempt for the institutions and practices that provide for democratic stability.

Many in academia and journalism, and even in Parliament, are woefully ill-informed about the fundamentals of our parliamentary system.   There is a great deal of erroneous information transmitted by these opinion leaders.

The lack of knowledge by those who should know better by virtue of their profession helps to fuel the pining for certain elements of the American system of government despite the lack of in-depth familiarity with why that system was developed and how it functions.

This unfamiliarity has spawned wistfulness for a system that even some of its founders may have come to believe is in need of significant reform in light of a different America today than at its founding.

Filibuster

The accretion of powers within the United States Senate which allows a single senator to place lengthy holds on or filibuster certain legislation are profoundly undemocratic practices in what is often self-servingly called the world’s greatest deliberative body.

The American founders might also be horrified by the army of corporate lobbyists who have been adept at finagling gigantic tax loopholes, outsized subsidies, lax regulation and wink and nod legislation.  This system has cost America trillions at the expense of social protections such as an infant mortality rate of which the world’s greatest power should be embarrassed.

Both the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government refused despite warnings to provide oversight – including legislation – that would have regulated OTC derivatives and other fanciful financial instruments.   This historic failure helped to ignite a global economic meltdown, crippling the housing market, life savings and prospects for millions in the middle class in the U.S. alone.

Most of those who helped create this disaster escaped responsibility.   It is baffling when so-called progressives at home call for the adoption of a more America-styled system supposedly to check the abuses of power.  Politicians do not have a monopoly on such abuse.   Unchecked financial interests are also toxic to the political system.

If America is the prime model for those Bahamians who want a reformed political system based on that model, they have some explaining to do in light of the failures of that country’s political system.

Despite the common misperception, ours is really not a Westminster system of government.   We have a written constitution which Britain does not, and a number of the customs and traditions used in the much larger British parliamentary system are not germane to and are unworkable in our context.   With a 650-member House of Commons compared to our 41-member House of Assembly, our practice of parliamentary democracy is necessarily different.

However, our system is derived from the British parliamentary tradition which has enjoyed significant success including stability and resourcefulness over many centuries.   With not even a half a century of majority rule we are still familiarizing ourselves with our parliamentary system and democratic politics.

The Bahamian system

Still, we have done quite well as a democracy since 1967.   In rapid succession we produced a number of firsts having thrown the major parties out of office after 25 then 10 then five years.   We have done so including surviving two elections with questionable results – 1962 and 1987 – with little to no violence.

Our system is resilient, anchored in a constitutional framework and a rule of law stronger than the personalities and parties who may hold legislative and executive power for a period.   We often confuse the current occupants of high office with the actual nature and powers inherent in those offices.

Some of this confusion takes the form of asking whether the prime minister has too much power as granted by the constitution.   Interestingly, this school of thought gains currency when more powerful leaders are in office such as Sir Lynden Pindling and Hubert Ingraham.  This was much less a concern during the weaker prime ministership of Perry Christie.

Curiously, many of those who have advanced this line of thinking while in opposition did not act on their convictions during their time in government.

The question about the prime minister’s power is a part of a larger question about the scope and nature of the powers granted to officeholders, particularly in the executive and legislative spheres.   It is often discussed in the language of the balance of power and checks and balances.

Our constitution provides numerous checks such as the provision that executive authority is held by the cabinet of The Bahamas, not singularly by the prime minister, a fact that seems to escape many commentators.   It also provides for the removal of a prime minister by his parliamentary colleagues.

All democratic systems wrestle with how much power to afford elected leaders, balancing sufficient power to get things done with checks on those powers to limit potential abuse.  That singular democratic impulse borne from the experience of time and various places has given rise to varying systems such as those of Britain and the U.S.

Before being mesmerized by the supposed greater genius of the American political enterprise, more of us may well examine the Bahamian democratic experience and the rationale underpinning parliamentary democracy.   Then we may more fully appreciate the genius of our system, which, while always in need of reform, has gotten the essentials right and offers more flexibility and built-in resources of which many remain blissfully ignorant and blithely uninformed.

Nov 08, 2011

frontporchguardian@gmail.com

www.bahamapundit.com

thenassauguardian

Bahamas: Reducing the government 'only way' to long-term fiscal security

By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor:


Reducing the size of government is "the only way" to set The Bahamas' public finances back on the road to fiscal sustainability, a leading accountant said yesterday, arguing that the private sector was not large enough to generate the tax revenues needed to pay for ever-expanding public services.

Raymond Winder, Deloitte & Touche (Bahamas) managing partner, also criticised the "average Bahamian" for putting pressure on politicians to continually increase public spending through the mistaken belief that "government can solve all our ills and problems without it costing money".

Acknowledging that Bahamian political, religious and other community leaders "in teaching the average Bahamian that there is nothing free", Mr Winder told Tribune Business that people needed to take more personal responsibility and realise that the country and economy, not just the Government, needed to grow.

"We're not educating people to let them know you can't continually increase the size of government, or have the government continually provide new services, without having that money come from somewhere," he explained.

Raising taxes or introducing new ones was not the long-term answer, Mr Winder added, because the Bahamas - given its relatively small size and population - could only bear this rising burden to a certain point.

And given the recession, which had caused business activity and international trade to contract, and a subsequent decline in government revenues, Mr Winder said companies and households were in no position to absorb new and/or increased taxes and fees.

"We don't have a private sector that is big enough to pay for all these services," the Deloitte & Touche (Bahamas) managing partner said.

"The majority of the private sector is unable to meet their obligations, so how do you expect to get all this without paying for these services. It's just not there.

"We need to tighten our belts and take personal responsibility for some of the things we ought to."

Backing the position adopted by Rick Lowe, an executive with the hawkish Nassau Institute economic think-tank, Mr Winder told Tribune Business: "For the size of our country, the Government is too big and has to be reduced.   That's the only way to right our fiscal responsibility [position]."

Bahamians had been led to believe that growing the Government could fix all this nation's problems and social ills, without realising that the economy and country as a whole needed to grow to.

"The reality is our problems will not be solved if government continues to grow without the wider country growing with it," he added.

Yet Mr Winder said any politician who preached the message of personal and fiscal responsibility, and that The Bahamas should not keep increasing the size of government, was unlikely to find themselves a politician for too much long because it was not something the majority of voters were attuned to or accustomed to hearing.

"I blame the average Bahamian, who believes the Government can solve all our problems and ills without it costing money," Mr Winder said.

He added that "ministers of the Gospel also need to do a better job", as many were "continually pushing" for the Government to provide new services and cure all The Bahamas' problems.

Tribune Business revealed yesterday how The Bahamas' national debt stands at almost $3.8 billion, between $11,000-$12,000 per resident.   Data from the Central Bank of the Bahamas' latest statistical digest showed that at the 2009 third quarter end on September 30, 2009, this nation's national debt stood at $3.675 billion.   Some $3.236 billion of that was directly owed to creditors by the Bahamian government, along with a further $438.486 million worth of borrowings it had guaranteed on behalf of public sector corporations and agencies.

In downgrading the Bahamas' long-term sovereign credit rating, Standard & Poor's (S&P) had warned: "Overall, the general government deficit is projected at 4.8 per cent of GDP in 2009-2010 (ending June 2010) from an estimated 4.1 per cent of GDP in 2008-2009.

"During 2010-2012, we project general government deficits on the order of 3.5 per cent of GDP, compared with deficits of 1.5 per cent of GDP in 2003-2007."

The Wall Street credit rating agency said the Bahamas' net general government debt had risen to 30 per cent of GDP, compared to 22 per cent in 2008, and it added: "We project that it will continue rising to 35-39 per cent of GDP in 2010-2012.

"Gross general government debt is higher at 46 per cent of GDP in 2009, up from 37 per cent in 2008. The Commonwealth's share of external to locally issued debt is 20 per cent, which is relatively low but up from 10 per cent in 2007."

January 08, 2010

tribune242