Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis is facing immense pressure from the Free National Movement Council to give Agriculture Minister Michael Pintard another nomination for Marco City in the next election.
Minnis has told several senior party members he does not want to run the increasingly vocal Marco City MP as a candidate. However,the FNM leader has received backlash from council members who view Pintard as one of the party’s more competent members of parliament on Grand Bahama.
Minnis and Pintard were thick as thieves in opposition but that has changed in recent months as Pintard has privately challenged Minnis on policy decisions he doesn’t agree with.
The maximum leader, who is rumored to be preparing for an early election, is weeding out those FNM MPs who have not always towed the party line and replacing them with persons loyal to him.
Minnis seems to have forgotten that he became FNM leader by default when the FNM government faced a stunning defeat in the 2012 General Election and then leader Hubert Ingraham stepped down.
The only three members of the Ingraham cabinet to survive the political cut hip were Minnis, Central Grand Bahama MP Neko Grant and Long Island MP Loretta Butler-Turner. Though Grant was the more senior party member, he was based in Grand Bahama, leaving Minnis as the obvious choice for leader, despite only having served one term in parliament.
In 2016, the majority of Minnis’ parliamentary team had him ousted as opposition leader, citing his failed leadership, lack of preparation for parliament and secretive ways.