Is The Bahamas becoming a dictatorship under Dr. Hubert Minnis?

Dear Editor,

With the November 24 declaration of a third state of emergency by Governor General Cornelius Smith, Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis now has constitutional authority to impose additional restrictive measures for another six months.

In the House of Assembly, Minnis mentioned extending the emergency order to January 31, which would mean that the decision regarding our civil liberties will be solely in the hands of the competent authority during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays and perhaps well into the foreseeable future.

I have not been following the debate regarding this matter in the House of Assembly.

I would assume that the overwhelming majority of Free National Movement (FNM) MPs present during the debate rubber-stamped the bill, which has led to criticisms that FNM MPs are whistling past the graveyard with Minnis as competent authority since March.

I have been critical of the seeming unilateral governance under Minnis, with the executive and legislative branches of government appearing to be on hiatus.

Reading a recent Nassau Guardian editorial concerning the extension of the emergency order, the writer seems to have implied that The Bahamas, which is a constitutional parliamentary democracy, is trending towards becoming a dictatorship under Minnis.

The writer may have read an April 3 Washington Post article that claims that dictators are using the coronavirus to strengthen their grip on power.

Merriam-Webster defines a dictatorship as a form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in a dictator or a small clique.

Intending to evoke dread in the Bahamian people, one FNM critic postulated that Minnis might attempt to postpone the general election, using the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext.

Such a scenario would be similar to what is currently happening in Ethiopia under the administration of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who postponed the general election indefinitely due to COVID-19, which was scheduled for August.

In December 2019 Abiy Ahmed won the Noble Peace Prize for his economic and social reforms in a country of approximately 110 million and over 80 ethnic groups.

Notwithstanding his international appeal, Abiy Ahmed and the Ethiopian Army are currently engaged in a full-scale civil war with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in the Tigray region in Northern Ethiopia.

Ethiopia currently has 109,534 confirmed COVID-19 infections and 1,700 deaths.

Opposition groups obviously do not agree with the election postponement.

This has led to allegations of Abiy Ahmed becoming a dictator, which is not uncommon in Sub-Saharan Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular.

Africa currently has 19 dictators.

The Marxist autocrat Mengistu Haile Mariam ruled Ethiopia with an iron-fist between 1977 and 1991.

One of the key leaders of the military Derg that overthrew the alleged Solomonic monarchy of Haile Selassie I in 1975, Mengistu orchestrated the bloody Ethiopian Red Terror between 1977 and 1978, with an estimated 30,000 – 750,000 executions.

Mengistu was as ruthless as Uganda’s Idi Amin, Libya’s Muammar al-Gaddafi and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.

All four African leaders fit the definition of a dictator, who openly suppressed, persecuted and murdered members of the media and the opposition.

With respect to Abiy Ahmed, I can understand why Ethiopians are jittery.

With respect to Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis, I believe his critics are being disingenuous and are overexaggerating his latest political moves.

With our proximity to the United States of America, no government, be it FNM or Progressive Liberal Party, would be able to get away with what Mugabe, Mengistu, al-Gaddafi and Amin did to their respective countries.

Granted, Fidel Castro was successful in establishing a decades-old communist dictatorship in Cuba after overthrowing the Fulgencio Batista, US-backed dictatorship in the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

For strategic and diplomatic reasons unknown to the writer, the US government has tolerated Cuba’s dictators.

I don’t think the same courtesy would be extended to a nation with a population of just 400,000 and a small defense force that cannot even defeat the Haitian Army.

A Minnis dictatorship would be immediately crushed by the American military.

I am not a water boy for this FNM administration.

As I stated in the past, I will sit out the upcoming general election.

Minnis has made his fair share of logistical mistakes as competent authority.

But I believe opposition forces would do a better job at intelligently engaging the FNM in a debate over COVID-19 without having to resort to fearmongering about Minnis becoming a dictator.

Such unfounded speculation is an insult to the hundreds of millions who have suffered under dictatorships.

– Kevin Evans

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