By: Staff Writer
September 17, 2021
It was a sweeping landslide victory for the incoming Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) led by its leader Philip “Brave” Davis as they ousted the now former Free National Movement (FNM) government led by outgoing Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis.
The polling divisions started coming in less than an hour after they closed at 6pm on Thursday evening and by 8:45pm concessions speeches from FNM candidates started to roll in culminating with a concession telephone call Dr Minnis gave to incoming Prime Minister Davis.
At the end of the day, the PLP is projected to carry at least 30 out of the 39 seats up for grabs in the 2021 general election before the final results are posted later on this evening.
The third parties in this year’s general election were virtually a non-factor as none held any significant votes that would have swung a seat either way from the two main parties.
Observers like Peter Wickham, director of Caribbean Development Research Services, told Caribbean Magazine Plus after St Lucia’s election earlier this year where the then United Workers Party government lost in a landslide to the St Lucia Labour Party that he was seeing a trend with regard to elections being held during the COVID-19 pandemic in that governments that called elections early in the pandemic stood a better chance at victory than those that had the pandemic linger on for a year or more.
His reasoning was that in the onset, if governments took decisive action when a natural disaster occurred, they will be seen as strong and the best choice but as the bitterness and anger in the electorate lingers on the less and less likely it would be for a government to win facing that much discontent in the public.
Be that as it may, it is a new government for The Bahamas is promising a “New Day” and as the COVID-19 pandemic still morphs, there is much work to do.
