Bahamas voters oust ruling party
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| Published on Thursday, May 3, 2007 |
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By Jane Sutton
NASSAU, Bahamas (Reuters) - Bahamian voters ousted their government and returned former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham's party to power in parliamentary elections dominated by economic issues and political scandals.
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| Hubert Ingraham |
Ingraham's Free National Movement, or FNM, won 23 of the 41 seats in the House of Assembly and will form the new government to lead the island chain for the next five years, according to unofficial results reported by the state-owned ZNS television station.
Outgoing Prime Minister Perry Christie's Progressive Liberal Party, or PLP, campaigned mainly on its economic record in the affluent, tourism-dependent nation of 700 islands and 320,000 people.
But Ingraham's party successfully raised ethical questions, including allegations that immigration officials fast-tracked a residency permit for pinup model and billionaire's widow Anna Nicole Smith, who lived in the Bahamas until her accidental drug overdose death in Florida in February.
Ingraham, who was prime minister from 1992 to 2002, portrayed the election as "a matter of trust." He also accused Christie's party of allowing foreign investors and foreign workers to profit at the expense of Bahamians.
Thousands of supporters, clad in the party's signature red shirts and caps, jammed the streets around the party's headquarters in the capital, Nassau.
They broke into cheers and raised torches, their party's symbol, as Ingraham took the stage in the same red garb.
"We will devote all of our energies to the continued development of our nation in every respect -- economic, political, social and cultural," Ingraham told the crowd. "We ask our political opponents and all Bahamians to join us in this endeavor."
Christie phoned Ingraham to concede defeat and offer congratulations.
The two rivals are lawyers and former partners in the same firm. Ingraham's FNM was associated with the predominantly white "Bay Street Boys" who ran the Bahamas prior to independence from Britain in 1973.
The party lost in a landslide when Christie's PLP, traditionally seen as the party of the black majority, swept to power in 2002. The FNM had its revenge on Wednesday by making Christie's government the only one-term government in the post-colonial Bahamas.
Ingraham's party appeared to have won over young first-time voters and the "float voters" with no strong party ties. Independent candidates took four seats in the last election but failed to win any this time.
The FNM had lodged charges of corruption against Christie's government and accused his party of offering cash and jobs for votes in Wednesday's balloting.
The PLP vigorously denied the charges, but election regulators banned cameras and cell phones from polling centers amid rumors that some people had been offered payments if they presented photographic proof of how they voted.
Elections officials estimated more than 90 percent of the 150,000 registered voters participated. | | | | Reads : 326 | | | |
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