Only 45 minutes out of Miami by jet, the Bahama Islands have long been one of the favorite playgrounds of Americans. Composed of 700 islands that are washed by the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, the Bahamas have a population of only 140,000 people, 85% of them Negro. Yet for many years the islands' fate has been held firmly in the hands of a tight little group of white businessmen known as the "Bay Street Boys," after the main street of the capital of Nassau. The group's two dozen members controlled both Bahamian commerce and politics through their predominantly white United Bahamian Party. Last week the Boys got quite a setback.
In the islands' first parliamentary elections since Britain conferred "limited" independence on them in 1964, the Negro-dominated Progressive Liberal Party and the United Bahamian Party tied with 18 seats each in the 38-seat House of Assembly. To get a parliamentary majority and topple the Boys from power, P.L.P. Leader Lynden Pindling, 36, a Negro lawyer from New Providence Island, wooed to his side the House's two other new members—a white independent, and a Negro laborite. At week's end, after Premier Sir Roland Symonette resigned, Pindling was invited by Governor Sir Ralph Grey to form a new government.
Two Targets. Running only a few Negro candidates, the eleven-year-old Bahamian Party had managed to hold onto power largely through the divisions within the opposition and the apathy of Negro voters, who seemed not to want a change. Thus the party went into last week's election with an almost smug unconcern; it staged no rallies, and its leaders in government even refused interviews. The 14-year-old Progressive Liberal Party, however, campaigned on all the main islands, plastered car and truck bumpers with stickers, and tacked up posters everywhere.
As his issues, Pindling picked two tempting targets. On the one hand, he accused the U.B.P. of making too much use of a good thing—namely, the islands' 1964 constitution, which permits government members to continue their private businesses on the side in place of a salary. The Bay Street Boys, Pindling said, cut themselves and their buddies in on promising investments, got the inside track on government contracts, and accepted questionable "consultant fees" from fellow businessmen. Pindling also found an issue in the islands' gambling, which, though illegal, is permitted at three casinos by specific exemption of the government. Pindling claimed that mob elements were taking over the casinos. To dramatize both charges, he has gone before the United Nations Colonial Committee in New ork twice in the past two years, flew to London in November to make the same charges to Fred Lee, then Colonial Secretary, against the United Bahamian Party.