Progressive Labour Party's invitation to Sir Lynden Pindling to come here and open the PLP's revamped Alaska Hall headquarters. It was claimed at the time by the PLP that the Prime Minister of the Bahamas was an outstanding statesman for the Bahamas and a blessing to his country. In the wake of his recent severe election defeat, things are looking very different.

The day after Sir Lynden's defeat, we heard PLP leader Mr. Frederick Wade on television lamenting the PLP defeat in the Bahamas and saying that Prime Minister Sir Lynden had turned the Bahamas into a tourism and off-shore company economy "second to none''. It makes us wonder where Mr. Wade lives because Bermudians know the Bahamas is certainly second to Bermuda.

It is true that Sir Lynden achieved popularity by taking the Bahamas to Independence but that was a long time ago. His real political secret seems to have been a badly fragmented opposition. Sir Lynden's downfall was constantly being predicted but did not happen until 1992. In Nassau the scandals of inquiries, commissions and legal cases came and went and Sir Lynden survived but it was not always comfortable. In 1985 when he processed through Nassau with the Queen he had to divert her gaze from knots of people carrying placards which said, "Pindling is a thief''. These were a reference to unproven Opposition allegations that Sir Lynden was involved in the profits of large-scale drug smuggling. There were also extensive allegations against his cabinet ministers. Last year a survey showed that 25 of the 49 members of the Bahamas parliament are today millionaires.

The beaches, inlets and islands of the Bahamas were tailor made for drug smuggling which was virtually impossible to control, but billions of dollars of tainted money are believed to have been laundered through financial centres in the Bahamas and that could be controlled but was not.

Now Sir Lynden has been defeated after 25 years and even the normally pro- PLP Nassau Guardian said that Sir Lynden's defeat had "finally'' come. It may be no accident that the new Prime Minister, Hubert Ingraham, was a member of the Pindling Government and split from the Bahamas PLP over drug and corruption charges against the government. He waged his winning campaign on issues of corruption and incompetence and was helped by the recession which has hit Bahamas tourism very hard and dropped earnings by $100 million in 1991 forcing an unprepared Sir Lynden to introduce a supplementary budget raising taxes.

It is true that the Bahamas has done well from its proximity to the United States. By Caribbean standards the Bahamas' per capita income of $11,320 is high but it is only half Bermuda's $22,500. There was a time when Bermuda and the Bahamas were mentioned in the same breath, almost as twins. Today the Bahamas, after 25 years of Sir Lynden, is looked on internationally as a Third World country and Bermuda is regarded as the best run, richest, and most stable of the islands, and Bermuda has been spared the scandals.

How come Mr. Frederick Wade considers the Bahamas "second to none''?