Several Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) candidates have indicated that they believe voters being paid by the Free National Movement (FNM) may have played a crucial role in their resounding loss in last week’s general election.
The Bahama Journal spoke with PLP candidate for Elizabeth Alex Storr during former Prime Minister Perry Christie’s resignation on Monday, where he said “pay for play” may have taken place in his constituency.
“I think there were several factors you could point to as reason for the loss. I heard stories of money playing a factor, but I want to analyze exactly what went wrong to see,” Mr. Storr said. “I think that it’s something we fully understand, yet we will fully analyze it in our post-election meeting.”
The Bahama Journal also interviewed the PLP’s interim leader Philip ‘Brave’ Davis who reiterated Mr. Storr’s claims.
“There is chatter about persons being paid to vote in which I encountered in my constituency and have statements from persons who were offered money, but where we take that is another matter.
“And there are so many of the things we are looking at now. I do not know if they impacted the results any, but you only can find out after a proper assessment,” Mr. Davis said.
Former Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe also spoke with The Bahama Journal about what may have contributed to him losing his seat to the FMN’s Pakeisha Parker-Edgecombe over in Grand Bahama and while he does not suggest the cash factor, he did acknowledge there were some irregularities.
“The unfortunate reality is, I think, some things that we will have to look into caused a swing we did not expect, voter turnout was not where we wanted it to be and I think Bimini did me in because at the end we saw a lot of persons in Bimini who did not support the PLP.
“However, there were some irregularities that we know of and have documented that we will talk about, but there were some irregularities,” Mr. Wilchcombe said.
The FNM won 35 out of 39 seats in the House of Assembly, while the PLP won four and only one of which was in New Providence.
The election wiped out a number of senior PLP members and saw former Prime Minister Perry Christie lose his long held Centreville seat.
