By Gerrino J. Saunders
In recent weeks Progressive Liberal Party Chairman Fred Mitchell has
found himself having to defend the party or debunk claims made by
detractors of the Davis administration.
This past weekend there was the release of results of a public survey
purportedly by the University of The Bahamas, asking residents to grade
the Davis administration on their performance after two years in office.
The results of the survey were not favorable. Chairman Mitchell who is
also the Minister of Foreign Affairs and was in New York with Prime
Minister Davis attending first the Clinton Global Initiative 2023 then the
78 th session of the United Nations General Assembly, sought to dismiss
the results of the survey which were shared widely on social media.
Chairman Mitchell described the survey as fake, while blaming the
official opposition Free National Movement (FNM) and the Coalition of
Independents (COI) for the poll.
He said, on Friday last (Sept 15 th ) he warned PLP’s about passing around
lies from the FNM propagandist online called the Bahamian Punch; but
over the weekend he said the propagandist “tried a new tact.”
“An aide in my office sent me a survey called ‘Two Year Bahamas
Performance Survey,’ then when I read the questions, poor grammar,
couldn’t spell my name right, and leading questions which no self
respecting polling operation would circulate, much less the University of
The Bahamas under who’s name it was said to have been published.
“The University of The Bahamas President Janyne Hodder immediately
denounced the so called survey saying that it was poorly written and not
up to UB standards, which require the attribution of an author, along
with the methodology and address so that the survey could be
questioned, and none of that applied to this phony document,” said the
PLP Chairman.

He suggested results of the poll were grossly inaccurate and
intentionally misleading.
Mr Mitchell then leaned on a recent poll by Public Domain to get what
he says is a “true temperature” of how the country feels about the Davis
administration two years into the term.
“The fake survey claims that Michael Pintard is widely popular, and
says that Dr Hubert Minnis should not attempt a comeback, but tries to
sully the PLP,” said Mitchell.
Continuing he claimed the “phony poll” was meant to sully the scientific
poll by Public Domain, authored M’wale Rahming and published in the
Nassau Guardian on the 11 th of September.
He said, “They [Public Domain] called 589 random persons and asked
them did they approve of the Prime Ministers performance and the
governments performance. For the PM’s performance 42 percent said
somewhat approve and 23 percent said they strongly approve. The press
then combined that to say 65 percent approve.
“As for the government, 43 percent said they somewhat approve and 21
percent said they strongly approve, that makes 64 percent approval. So
that’s a real poll not nonsense published by the FNM and COI,” said Mr
Mitchell.
However, he gave the following warning saying, “Let me add that polls
are not determinative, they are just a snap shot of what happens on a
particular day; they are indicative, they are not a reason to rest on our
laurels.”
Meanwhile, the Davis administration celebrated its 2 nd year in office this
past weekend. The party’s 55 th National Convention is set for
November 9 th 10 th .