Progressive Liberal Party Leader Philip Davis believes former Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe does not have the needed support to become the party’s chairman at the upcoming convention, but he is not hindering Wilchcombe’s attempt to vie for the position.
“If Obie wants to make an argument about why he should be chairman, he should do so,” Davis said on Wednesday, as he shared his thoughts on the party’s 54th convention.
“He came to ask me about running, and I told him I don’t see that he has the support. But if he sees things differently, no one is standing in his way.”
Davis said while there have been questions about the race for the party’s chairman position, he wants PLPs to know that, “whoever wants to run for any position should run”.
“This is the time to sort these kinds of things out,” he said. “I feel very good about the current team’s forward momentum.”
Senator Fred Mitchell currently serves as PLP chairman and hopes to retain the position following the convention.
Wilchcombe ran against Mitchell for chairman during the PLP’s 2017 convention, but unfortunately he lost.
The 54th convention begins tonight at the Melia Nassau Beach Resort.
The convention’s theme is ‘Renewal: A Call to Action’.
Davis said the party’s leadership team has reinvigorated the PLP with a sense of urgency because The Bahamas needs a strong, inclusive, forward-looking party that stands up for Bahamians.
“The core values of the PLP – freedom, justice, equality – will always guide us. It is up to us to fight for those principles in today’s Bahamas,” he said.
“One of the most important things a political party can do is to reach out and recruit new voices, new energy and new ideas. We have made great strides in establishing new reforms and new ways of working to accomplish just that.
“We have held multiple candidate modules, a new way to give our activists and branches more input, so that how we recruit, choose, and support candidates becomes more inclusive, more democratic, and more effective.
“We are engaged in a constitutional reform process, one that will implement much-needed changes and strengthen the role of women and young people in the party.
“We have been preparing the path for a new platform, because on too many fronts, The Bahamas is stuck, and needs new, innovative people-first policies.
“We are holding our third convention in two years because bringing people together is important when there’s a lot of work to be done.
“All of this work is important because renewing the PLP means building a party that is ready to govern, ready to stand up for Bahamians, ready to tackle our nation’s most urgent problems.”
