The Elections have come and gone and the different waves have settled and many are still scratching their heads, puzzled as to what transpired. I try to have an answer for every occasion and the best thing I have come up with so far is that the undecided voters decided to stay home. I was hoping for a scenario where the sitting Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition ( who is now Prime Minister) would have lost their seats and the two men waiting in the wings would have been able to bring us into a "new day", but that was not to be; even one of those did not make it. There are comments I would like to reserve until I see how close the seats were and which constituency polling stations were active or inactive. However, I will go out on a limb and say that this Election was supposed to be closer, but too many persons stayed home because they were afraid to catch covid-19; but in the Food Store on Saturday two well-dressed ladies opined that it was a combination of Covid-19 and a lost of interest . I can agree with both reasons but the latter one could be the most telling, as I recall the FNM machine being more active around the polling stations in past Elections, but this time they were out-colored and out-manned. A certain, peculiar class of FNM worker seemed to be missing from the areas surrounding the stations, almost like the B Teams were representing.
There is an upside of this "victory" for the PLP that is more of a victory than a mandate. The margin of victory informs both Parties that many are dissatisfied and there could be mischief afoot in the months ahead. The upside? It looks like the new Prime Minister has stepped forward; if we regard what he has said in "acceptance" speech. I have never, heard him speak in that manner before,( except more than 50 years ago with the lunch time crowd in front of the Nassau Shop)there were pauses, no hesitation or stumbling and Thursday evening's speech came with a peculiar conviction. I guess there are times when content and context are able to drive dialogue in a meaningful way. I was thinking of what may have triggered this 'brave new" posture and I recall that the last member of the "law firm" has now ascended to the status of two of his former partners and may have something to prove. He will have no problem surpassing one of them but surpassing the remaining one is a challenge. It may sound odd, but he has a quality that all of his predecessors did not have ... ...he is not easily ticked off.
Hopefully he selects from the men who came before a quality of their personality and brings them together so that they can compliment each other. The tact of Pindling, the drive of Ingraham, the loquaciousness of Christie and the (sometime needed) arrogance of Minnis. I have not placed the official title before these former Prime Ministers intentionally, remembering that the "best of men are men at best". I have requested the men of our Church's Bible Study group to hold up our Prime Minister in prayer, it just may be that God will do his best work with a man who many consider to be the least of all the vessels.
Sincerely,
Edward Hutcheson