OSWALD BROWN

Writes...

Labour and Immigration Minister Shane Gibson is in a critical fight for his political life. Once considered to be a top contender among the cadre of ambitious Progressive Liberal Party Members of Parliament who would be in the running to replace Prime Minister Perry Christie should he decide to close the book on his political career while the PLP is in power, Gibson's star has plummeted considerably as a result of the Anna Nicole Smith scandal.

More likely than not, it will descend even further as the extraordinary circumstances continue to unfold with regard to the swift manner in which the Immigration Department granted permanent residency to Playboy magazine's 1993 Playmate of The Year, who gained international notoriety in 1994 after marrying Texas oil billionaire J. Howard Marshall, a man 63 years her senior.

Exactly what role Gibson played in facilitating the special treatment extended to Smith depends on who is telling the truth about her $10,000 permanent residency fee. Newspaper reports state that a member of the law firm of Callenders & Co. claimed she personally delivered a cheque made out to the Public Treasury for that amount to Gibson at Smith's newly purchased home, but Gibson has vehemently denied that claim.

Clearly, someone is not telling the truth, and columnist Nicki Kelly of The Punch provided the best solution for determining who is lying. In her most recent column, Kelly made this very valid suggestion: "Given all that has taken place during the course of this very nasty affair, including the death of Smith's 20-year-old son Daniel, there needs to be a public inquiry in which witnesses are required under oath to tell the truth."

There is a compelling urgency for Prime Minister Christie to follow Kelly's advice if he wants to salvage whatever semblance of credibility his government still has and, more importantly, retain the respect that he personally still enjoys generally among the Bahamian people.

He should have long ago abandoned his signature "consultative approach" to governance and dealt assertively with several previous scandals that have rocked his government, but there is a distinct possibility that none of the previous wrongdoings will be as devastating to his government as the Anna Nicole Smith debacle once all the facts are in the public domain.

Some political observers have concluded that Gibson has already excavated his political grave and is awaiting for the final rites to take place in the next election, but they should keep in mind that Gibson is one of the most astute practitioners in the political arena in this country.

Before entering politics he was a powerful labour leader, and I have made the point on more than one occasion in this column that with the exception of the late Sir Randol Fawkes, no other labour leader in the history of The Bahamas has been more skillful in using the labour movement as a launching pad for a successful political career.

There was a time when Sir Randol was considered to be the premier black leader in The Bahamas. As a fearless young lawyer, he became very popular as a labour leader in the 1950s, and in the bowels of Over-The-Hill he was even more revered than the late Sir Lynden Pindling, who became the the country's first Prime Minister.

Both he and Pindling were among the six PLPs elected to the House of Assembly in 1956, establishing for the first time an organised black opposition to the white oligarchy that at the time governed this country as if it were their personal fiefdom. An excellent speaker, he seemed unalterably on track to one day be Prime Minister.

But he never reached that lofty goal. Somewhere along the way, he allowed himself to be outmanoeuvred politically by Sir Lynden.

Prior to the Anna Nicole Smith scandal, Gibson certainly exhibited the kind of political savvy that suggested he would have been even more successful politically than Sir Randol before his political career came to an end.

Gibson's meteoric rise up the ladder of political importance was carefully planned and orchestrated by a skilful operative who knows which buttons to push and what steps to take to accomplish his goals. This became quite obvious during his tenure as president of the BCPOU, which he abandoned in 2002 to successfully run as the PLP candidate for the Golden Gates constituency in New Providence.

As president of the BCPOU, he was a confrontational leader who established intimidation as the hallmark of the union. A classic example was the massive demonstration held outside the House of Assembly in March of 1999 that came eerily close to getting out of control, had the police not displayed the type of professionalism that they sometimes do not get full credit for. This was during negotiations for "separation packages" for those Bahamas Telecommunications Cor-poration workers who were affected by the proposed privatization of BaTelCo that was being negotiated at the time. Gibson succeeded in getting for those workers what many people considered to be overly generous "retirement" cheques.

In the relatively short time he has been in active politics, Gibson has used the skills he developed as president of BCPOU to become one of the most productive members of the Cabinet.

As Minister of Housing and National Insurance, he did a remarkable job – particularly with regard to the Govern-ment's affordable housing programme – and more likely than not it was because of the excellent job he did as Housing Minister that the next assignment given to him by Prime Minister Christie after the recent cabinet reshuffle included responsibility for immigration matters.

Almost immediately, Gib-son decided to tackle the illegal immigrant problem by launching a series of dramatic raids. Although there was widespread criticism for the manner in which illegal Haitian immigrants were rounded up, mostly in the early hours of the morning, Gibson was highly praised generally for aggressively tackling a problem that has plagued The Bahamas for decades.

Given the tough approach he used in dealing with illegal Haitians, it is somewhat ironic that Gibson's political future has been endangered by allegations that he may have bent the rules to arrange for Anna Nicole Smith to become a permanent resident of The Bahamas in a relatively short period of time.

Of course, there must be something very special about a woman who is able to convince an 90-year-old billionaire, who died a year later, to marry her and a wealthy South Carolina developer to purchase a $1 million dollar home for her in The Bahamas. That home supposedly was what qualified Smith to have her permanent residency fast-tracked and is now at the centre of a legal dispute as to whether or not it was a gift from the South Carolina developer, as Smith claims, or was purchased for her with the understanding that she would execute a mortgage guaranteeing repayment of the purchase price.

It is now almost a certainty that any chance of Gibson salvaging his near-wrecked political future could very well depend on how this matter is decided legally.

Oswald T. Brown is editor and general manager of The Freeport News. Comments on this column can be sent to androsboy@hotmail.com