The speaker’s political games

It is likely no coincidence that House Speaker D. Halson Moultrie’s resignation from the Free National Movement (FNM) came not long after Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis met with him and asked him not to seek renomination for Nassau Village.

Moultrie has long proven that he has neither the temperament nor the good judgment to effectively and admirably perform as speaker, but that is a position he has decided to hang onto as it is the only card he has left to play.

Interestingly, in a recent interview with Perspective, carried in our Monday edition, he revealed that Minnis recently presented him with an offer in exchange for his agreeing to back off of renomination, but he did not reveal what the offer was. He did say it was not an offer he could accept.

That he resigned from the FNM not long after this offer was purportedly made is quite telling.

Moultrie, the one-time leader of the now defunct Bahamian Freedom Alliance, won Nassau Village on the FNM’s ticket with 56 percent of the votes in 2017. He has since become increasingly critical of the Minnis administration.

In a letter addressed to FNM Secretary General Serfent Rolle last week, the speaker highlighted his concern and frustration over the lack of independence of Parliament as the reason for his exit from the party.

“My patriotic and not to be compromised convictions on fundamental essentials of democracy and good governance such as the separation of powers, autonomy and independence of the legislature and judiciary, accountability and transparency, freedom of information and respect for the constitution make my continued affiliation and association divergent and untenable,” he wrote.

The speaker has long stated his concerns about lack of independence.

Last October, he said, “I cannot accept that, in the year 2020, some 291 years after the establishment of the Parliament of The Bahamas, which is the first act of government, [it] is still being pulled along by the executive branch of government like a dinghy boat, hitched to the mothership.”

In a statement in the House last September, Moultrie spoke of the need to “remedy the wrongs that exist in The Bahamas’ version of Westminster” and called for the “total separation” of the legislative branch from the executive.

We do not doubt that Moultrie’s concerns about the lack of independence of the legislature are genuine. Former Speaker Dr. Kendal Major had expressed similar concerns when he sat in the chair. We support calls for the executive to respect the separation of powers.

In this space last August, we reported extensively on a bill prepared by a team of attorneys advising the 

speaker; that bill seeks to put Parliament directly in control of its budget and loosen the Cabinet’s stranglehold on the administrative functions of Parliament.

It has not gotten anywhere.

We find it curious that having come to the end of his rope, Moultrie resigned from the FNM and not from the position of speaker, which, according to his own account, has caused deep frustrations and embarrassment to him.

It just does not add up that he chooses to stay as speaker while the reasons he gave in his resignation letter have everything to do with those frustrations in that role, and his feelings that the country’s constitution is being violated by the executive’s undue control of the legislature.

In a letter to the editor that runs in today’s Nassau Guardian, retired House Clerk Maurice Tynes makes an important observation.

Tynes said, “The speaker tried to make the claim in his letter that his resignation from his political party was a matter of principle. He made the charge that he could not remain affiliated with the FNM because the party was not committed to the ‘fundamental essentials of democracy’, a very serious charge.

“But if those fundamentals of democracy were the real reason for his resignation from the FNM, then his continuing in office as speaker remedies nothing.

“His resignation as speaker of the House of Assembly, however, would have sent a stronger signal of his fidelity to those democratic principles he espoused.”

We agree with Tynes.

It seems to us that Moultrie is playing political games.

At this stage, we suppose he feels he has nothing to lose in staying on as speaker. The executive could remove him if the House is dissolved. While there are clear signs the prime minister is preparing to call an election some time this year, we don’t see Minnis ringing the bell earlier than he intends to just to get rid of Moultrie.

Tynes posits, as has Moultrie, that proroguing Parliament is another option to remove him as speaker.

“The prime minister has the option of proroguing the Parliament thus ending the current session which has endured since 2017, and starting a new session of Parliament when a new vote of no confidence (against the speaker) could be introduced,” he said. 

Like other MPs before Moultrie who have left their party to go it alone, he has a national platform where his particular brand of politics can play out, but it appears that will be short lived.

For now, staying as speaker allows him to continue to get his $80,000 salary and other perks, notwithstanding his repeated complaints about disrespectful treatment by the executive and shabby office accommodations, which resulted in him turning in his key several months ago.

Though his reasons for leaving the FNM did not go beyond the issue of separation of powers in his resignation letter, Moultrie, in a subsequent interview with reporters, said his decision was prompted by several issues, including failed promises on the part of the government, his desire to be free from the constraints of party politics and what he called a “one leader” concept that he does not subscribe to.

How a man whose election was no doubt largely achieved because of his affiliation with the FNM, and whose ascension as speaker came after his party assumed office now suddenly scoffs at the “constraints” of party politics is simply baffling.

Moultrie appears to be acting as if he came to the role of speaker with blind folds on.

More than anything, he is behaving like a whiny toddler on a playground who cannot get his way.

Tynes noted that the question that has arisen since Moultrie’s resignation from the party is whether he has the moral authority to stay in office as speaker.

“I hold the view that if he had resigned from his political party upon being elected as speaker, which I encourage all future persons elected as speaker to do, this question would not have arrived,” he stated.

“Having not resigned from the FNM upon his election as speaker, he is bound by the dogma of his FNM party.”

Delusions of grandeur

Moultrie has not yet indicated whether he intends to run in Nassau Village as an independent.

The party’s decision not to renominate him would likely surprise no one.

His increasingly rocky relations with the government strongly suggested that was coming.

Last October, Moultrie arrogantly declared the FNM would lose Nassau Village without him.

“If they choose not to nominate me, then I most certainly could predict that the party I’m affiliated with, if they don’t nominate me in Nassau Village, they most certainly will not win that seat,” he said.

As far as Moultrie is concerned, he is indispensable.

“I believe if you make yourself indispensable and relevant, the party that you are affiliated with wouldn’t have much options when it comes to nominating you. I believe that I will make myself indispensable and I believe that I will be the best representative that Nassau Village has had in many decades,” he said in October.

Moultrie is sadly mistaken. Bahamian voters have repeatedly demonstrated that no politician is indispensable. All are easily replaceable, and most easy to forget.

If Moultrie decides to run as an independent in Nassau Village to prove how relevant and liked he is by constituents, we predict he would be roundly defeated.

Our reporters going into his constituency over the course of two days after his resignation were hard pressed to find anyone with anything positive to say about his representation.

We had to insist that in the interest of balance and good journalism that they try harder, but that was a tough task.

If Moultrie wants to prove just how popular he is in Nassau Village, he should put that to the test.

He might best be remembered in that constituency for installing water pumps, something he said was in the best interest of residents.

Despicable

We have no sympathies for the Minnis administration over the embarrassment Moultrie has caused them.

They are now stuck with him as speaker —a man whose reprehensible behavior they condoned three years ago, all in the name of politics.

After he unleashed a gutterish and unseemly attack on the opposition in 2018, FNM MPs rallied around him, amending a PLP vote of no confidence in the speaker and instead passing a resolution expressing confidence in Moultrie.

(Tynes noted in his letter that traditions and conventions of Westminster dictate that only one motion for a no confidence vote could be moved in a single session of Parliament.)

The Minnis administration’s confidence in the speaker came even after he fired nasty shots at the former House clerk in a seedy and mean-spirited fashion and even took a nasty swipe at the wife of the leader of the opposition.

We noted at the time that the FNM should have been horrified by Moultrie’s homophobic and xenophobic rant.

Instead, FNM members doubled down and praised Moultrie’s disrespectful and unparliamentary tirade.

Leader of Government Business Renward Wells shamelessly declared in Parliament that Moultrie had “restored the honor, dignity and respect to the high office of speaker”.

This, after the speaker behaved more like someone completely off the rails than one who sits in such an honorable position.

The FNM administration did what the PLP administration often did in office – it encircled its own, even when it was clear its own had behaved in a despicable and dishonorable fashion.

Though Moultrie eventually apologized for “getting in the flesh” and said his remarks had been “out of character”, the situation strongly underscored his unfitness for the speakership.

He has continued to demonstrate just how unfit he is.

In October 2019, he delivered a low-grade assault on media in The Bahamas from the speaker’s chair, going on a half hour rant that reconfirmed him to be ill-suited for the role.

How Moultrie behaves from the speaker’s chair from this point on is anyone’s guess.

Last year, the prime minister declared that existing boundaries will not change.

Moultrie, now an independent member, is chairman of the Constituencies Commission. It will be very interesting to see whether Minnis gets his way in what happens to the boundaries now.

The speaker said it is his intention to serve to “the best of my abilities” as an independent member.

His arrogance notwithstanding, he appears poised for the political wilderness.

Resignation from the FNM might embolden him to portray himself in almost god-like fashion as he presides over the proceedings of Parliament.

No one should be surprised if his rejection by the party leads to heightened tensions in the halls of Parliament with members of his former party. We could see him becoming an even sharper thorn in the side of the Minnis administration as the weeks and months progress.

Moultrie has nothing to lose for now, but as the term wanes, it might become increasingly apparent that his days in the venerated position he holds, and in frontline politics, are nearing an end.

We look forward to the day when honor and respect can be returned to the speaker’s chair. 

The post The speaker’s political games appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.

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