By: Staff Writer
December 6, 2024
The Bahamian parliament was forced to suspend on Wednesday as it’s the Deputy Leader for the Opposition Party threw the ceremonial mace out of the window in protest against the Speaker of the House not allowing them time to speak on the controversial resignation of the Commission of Police amid a drug indictment of several high-ranking law enforcement officials in the US.
Parliament member Shanendon Cartwright, frustrated after Speaker Patricia Deveaux did not let him speak, was seen rushing up where she was seated, grabbing the parliamentary mace, a heavy ceremonial staff, off the bench, and then tossing it out a nearby window.
Cartwright and his opposition members were upset that they were not allowing them to speak on the recent resignation of the country’s Commissioner of Police amid a drug scandal that has hit the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
The exchange escalated quickly after Opposition Leader, Michael Pintard, was speaking on his feet without an acknowledgement from Speaker Deveaux, which then led to Deveaux recognizing Leader of Government Business, Wayne Munroe, and leading to Cartwright to leave his seat and grab the mace and throw it out of the window.
“Get him!” Deveaux then yelled, with the incident recorded on a government broadcast.
He, alongside several ally lawmakers, were forced out of the building by police.
The move harks back to 1965, when the leader of the opposition threw the mace out of a window in a push for political change, an event that became known as “Black Tuesday.”
Police officers and Deputy House Speaker Sylvanus Petty tried to restrain Cartwright, but in the ensuing scuffle, Petty was struck on the head, reportedly suffering a concussion that required hospitalization.
After the Speaker ordered Cartwright’s removal, opposition MPs linked arms to block police intervention. Officers dragged the disheveled MPs, including Pintard, Kwasi Thompson, Adrian Gibson, and Adrian White, out of the chamber and took them outside.
Speaker Deveaux described the incident as a “dark day” for Bahamian politics.
“For the first time in my life when I took the oath of office, I felt challenged and I was in fear for my life,” she said when proceedings resumed. “I will review the tapes, and I will apprise the country later of my findings, but during today’s event, I was assaulted, I was hit, thank God for a glass of water in front of me. The honourable deputy speaker was given a blow to the head and has to go to hospital. And we have a police officer with terrible damage to his leg.”
Prime Minister Philip Davis later told reporters the FNM’s conduct was a “terrible display.”