Former FNM Chairman Darron Cash says he refuses to “fall in line” after FNM Chairman Sidney Collie suggested that those who have a disagreement with the party’s leader Dr. Hubert Minnis should do so or leave the party.
“I refuse to ‘fall in line’ simply because Mr. Collie says so. Chairman Collie can count me in the group of Bahamians that is not interested in the lesser of two evils. I want the FNM to be different…and as Earl Deveaux and Hubert Ingraham often reminded us… ‘distinctly different’,” Mr. Cash said in a press statement sent out over the weekend.
“The leader and chairman of the FNM cannot preach about democracy in our national government and political affairs when they fail to live by those same principles within the political party they lead. They cannot talk about anti-corruption measures, openness and transparency in the manner in which a government should manage its affairs when they out rightly refuse to acknowledge, much less fix, the undemocratic flaws or weaknesses in the political party they lead.
“The very idea that I and others ought to simply ‘fall in line’ reflects an unseemly arrogance and tone deafness that effectively illustrates why our party is in the fractured state that it is in today.”
The FNM has faced tremendous infighting over the past several weeks.
It began with six MPs threatening to write a letter to the governor general asking to remove Dr. Minnis as Opposition Leader.
That charge was led by FNM MP for Long Island Loretta Butler-Turner, who challenged Dr. Minnis for the party’s leadership post.
But after a tumultuous convention, Mrs. Butler-Turner along with her running candidate for the deputy leadership post Dr. Duane Sands both abruptly quit the race.
Last week, Mrs. Butler Turner said she was offered positions by Dr. Minnis, which at the time she did not accept.
However, yesterday, she confirmed that she was accepting the nomination to run on the FNM’s ticket for Long Island.
Mr. Cash, who continued to attack Mr. Collie, said many critics are saying that the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) and the FNM are “two sides of the same coin” because of the type of attitude demonstrated by Mr. Collie.
“In a 21st century Bahamas, any political party that refuses to embrace and benefit from political dissent is unworthy of becoming the government,” Mr. Cash said.
