By Julian Reid
Bahama Journal News Editor
Bahamians have been known to turn out in big numbers for elections. Their vote is regarded as sacred; a right they must exercise preciously… until lately it seems. Some political observers say that Monday’s bye-election in Golden Isles is a warning sign that we are heading down a road where the Bahamian electorate is disillusioned and just cannot be bothered to vote.
The issue was raised by constitutional lawyer Sean McWeeney, KC and was widely circulated on social media this week. Mr. McWeeney said, “the PLP has its work cut out for it. Yesterday’s results will no doubt be seen (and felt) as a knock in the head, all the more so when one considers the massive firepower and resources the government had brought to bear. All of it turned out to be a bit underwhelming if the final count is anything to go by.”
Senator Darron Pickstock of the Progressive Liberal Party won the Golden Isles seat with just 1,873 votes over the Free National Movement’s Brian Brown who got 1636 votes. Brian T. Rolle of the Coalition of Independents secured 348 votes. Sixteen votes were picked up by Karen Butler, an independent candidate.
But when you stack up the numbers, Golden Isles has nearly 8,000 registered voters, however, only half of them turned out to vote. What does this mean?
In the last general election the voter turnout throughout the country was considered low with some 65 percent of the electorate casting their ballots. Observers at the time believed that this could have been attributed to the COVID-19 Pandemic. However in that poll in September, 2021 in the Golden Isles constituency, the winner the late Vaughn Miller polled some 2,471 votes. The turnout then was 66 percent.
Sources in the PLP told the Journal that many people on the Register could not be found. There were approximately 7,500 voters on the register for this week’s by-election.
Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham now suggests that the register should be cleaned up. He is reported saying, “it’s indisputable that neither the PLP or the FNM could find thousands of voters.”
It is believed that many voters have relocated and didn’t transfer, or many of them are disillusioned about politics in the country.
Dr. Chris Curry, Associate Professor and head of the History department at the University of The Bahamas says it is too soon to determine that there is a real pattern here.
“It’s difficult to say when the only measuring gauge we have is the 2021 general election and Monday’s bye-election. Comparing a general election with a bye-election, it is like comparing apples and oranges,” Dr. Curry said.
Dr. Curry believes that to get a better sense of where the electorate is headed we would need at least three elections to see if there really is a pattern.
Within less than a year, the opportunity for voters to express their views of government performance at the ballot box will soon come again. The Bahamas has to constitutionally hold general elections by October 4, 2026.
Giving his thoughts about the other parties in Monday’s race, Mr. McWeeney said that Michael Pintard of the Free National Movement has shown himself “as a viable leader of the resurgent party.”
Pointing to Lincoln Bain’s COI, which got just 16.6 percent of the vote, McWeeney said, “still, they prevented the PLP from winning an outright majority of the total votes cast. It could also be argued that the COI cost the FNM the election by garnering 221 votes which, if added to the FNM’s tally, would have given the FNM the victory.”
The PLP is eager to get another mandate from the Bahamian people. No party has done this since the FNM secured a second consecutive term in 1997 under Hubert Ingraham.
Hence the warning to the PLP from McWeeney. “If, however, yesterday’s (Monday’s) results are interpreted as an affirmation that all is hunky-dorry and right on track, or if nothing but excuses are forthcoming now as to why the PLP didn’t get more votes, the cycle that has seen every single governing party in the past five General Elections get tossed out after just one term is bound to repeat itself.”
As for voter apathy, perhaps voters just did not take a by-election seriously. Political observers are now eager to see what the numbers are like in next year’s general election.
