The Bahamas main opposition Free National Movement (FNM) has elected former government minister, Michael Pintard as its new leader, just after a month after the party suffered a devastating defeat in the general elections, losing power to the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP).
Pintard, who served as agriculture and marine resources in the Dr. Hubert Minnis administration that lost the September 16 poll by a 32-7 margin, becomes the fifth leader of the party and has called on supporters to close ranks.
Minnis did not contest the leadership of the party and Pintard, who has been the parliamentary representative for Marco City since 2017, received 297 votes, defeating East Grand Bahama MP Kwasi Thompson and Central Grand Bahama MP Iram Lewis who got 120 and 44 votes respectively.
The former FNM chairman follows in the footsteps of Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, Hubert Ingraham, Tommy Turnquest and Minnis as FNM leaders and while he was embraced by former prime minister Ingraham and Turnquest following his election over the last weekend, Minnis, with whom he has had a strained relationship, did not attend the ceremony.
“Our collective genius is always better than a single-minded focus of a leader or a small group of leaders,” Pintard said during his victory speech, adding “we need all of you.
“That’s why we sent out the clarion call, asking FNMs who felt marginalized or disenfranchised or who had left. We’re saying to you, we wish for you to return home. We understand that we are weaker without you. You are at the center of our consideration. We are asking you to return to the organization that we built.
“I told our immediate past leader, I said sir, Dr Minnis, know that I will be blowing up your phone on a regular basis, sir. You are on speed dial. We intend to utilize the skills, the network, the talent of our former Prime Minister Hubert Alexander Minnis.”
Pintard has said he wants Bahamian politics to be less tribalistic and that under his leadership the FNM will constructively engage with the ruling PLP.
“Many Bahamians are relying on us, the Free National Movement, as an opposition force to hold the government’s feet to the fire. But they also want us to constructively engage the government and to make recommendations on legislation, on policies, on programs so that the government might function properly and our country can grow from strength to strength.
“It is not in our collective interest that this government fails. It is true that early indications are that there will be some who engage in excesses in the management of their portfolios but from the bottom of our heart we wish them success because more importantly, we wish our country to succeed,” Pintard said, acknowledging that while the last FNM administration did much to be proud of, it also made missteps.
“We know that part of our loss had to do with having to make very difficult decisions that were difficult for a population to embrace, but lest we make the mistake of not listening carefully to the population we also had some missteps,” he said.
“We made some mistakes. We had some unforced errors. The truth is sometimes we didn’t listen to you the way we ought to. Sometimes we forget that we are your servants, we work for you, that we have temporary jobs.”
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