Monique Pindling says PLP rejected her

The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) does not want Monique Pindling on its ticket for the next general election because of the negativity associated with her father’s legacy, Pindling, the youngest daughter of former prime minister the late Sir Lynden Pindling, charged yesterday.

But PLP Leader Philip Brave Davis yesterday denied the assertion.

After months of testing out support for a possible run in Mangrove Cay and South Andros, Pindling said she asked the party leadership for feedback.

After several attempts and no replies, she said she was finally told by the leadership of the party in summer 2020, “No, we are not going to run you. We don’t want a Pindling on the ticket.”

She said, “They alluded to something about negativity of my dad and didn’t want it to be the focus and things like that.”

Pindling, who appeared as a guest on the Guardian Radio 96.9 FM talk show “The Revolution” with host Juan McCartney, said she was “shocked”.

“You don’t want him, and I say ‘him’ because I didn’t take it personally because I look at it as the name brand,” she said.

“You don’t want the name on the ticket but yet, like you say, you want to go to the graveyard.

“You want to go to this and when you speak, you speak him and you speak about his vision and you speak about what he stood for. But if we don’t own him 100 percent, you all can’t own him 100 percent.

“So, we have to be included somewhere, and that 2017 speech that you always allude to, he stood for something. He represented something and if I, if us, as a Pindling, don’t stand up now and speak out for him, because he’s dead now, who’s going to speak for him?

“He has grandchildren that carry the name Pindling and have his blood through their veins. His legacy. They have to live in this Bahamas too.”

Her comments came one day after Mangrove Cay and South Andros MP Picewell Forbes announced that he will not run in the next election. Forbes said uncertainty over his renomination and a lack of support from the party’s leadership sealed his fate.

Pindling said yesterday that she is not the presumptive nominee for the seat.

“They did not want me in that seat,” she said.

“They still do not want me in that seat”

Asked if she would offer for the seat, if given the chance, Pindling said she’s thinking about it.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“It really all depends on the people of South and Central Andros and Mangrove Cay. I’m not sure. The situation is a little heated. All I want at the end of the day is for the people of Andros to get to choose the candidate that they want.”

Unfortunate

When asked to respond to Pindling, Davis said yesterday, “Those are unfortunate comments because we, the Progressive Liberal Party, do not accept any negative connotations that’s been out there with Sir Lynden.

“We revere him as the father of the nation. We revere him as the person who led the PLP to Majority Rule, to independence and he was the author and architect, along with others, of the modern Bahamas.

“So, why would we want to not honor him? And it is the Progressive Liberal Party that continues, to this day, to defend that legacy and will continue to defend that legacy.”

Asked if her father had anything to do with her not being considered for the seat, Davis said, “Not at all.”

Yesterday, George Smith, a former minister in Pindling’s Cabinet and a member of the PLP’s candidates committee, said that did not seem plausible.

“Nobody in the hierarchy of the PLP or genuine supporters of the PLP would make any disparaging remark about Sir Lynden Pindling. He is revered in the party and I think there is still today a growing respect for his contribution to the national development,” he said.

In 2017, during the PLP’s convention, Pindling slammed the party, charging that the PLP became “overcome with envy, consumed with jealousy and stung with greed”.

The party had just come off a terrible loss to the Free National Movement, having only won four of the 39 seats up for grabs. Even former Prime Minister Perry Christie lost his seat.

Pindling said yesterday that she is proud of her father’s legacy. 

“I’m dead proud of my father for all that he has done,” she said.

“I’m not saying that he’s perfect, God knows I’m not saying that. But I am proud today to say Lynden Pindling was my father and he did the best that he could.

“If anybody has a problem with that that’s fine with them, but that’s my daddy and if I can’t defend my daddy well then that’s too bad for you all.”

Asked about her future with the party, Pindling said she’s not sure.

“I hope it’s a good one,” she said.

“I hope it’s a good one. I’m still a PLP. I still believe in the philosophy of the PLP. I believe that criticisms are good. I think that you should be able to speak up and speak out when something is not right because it’s all for their good, I think.”

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