Institute of Commonwealth Studies

From the 1950s political power in the Bahamas had been contested between the white dominated United Bahamian Party and the Progressive Liberal Party, which represented the interests of the emerging black middle class. The latter gained control of government in 1967 and guided the country to independence by 1973. Critics alleged that the transfer of political power had made little difference to the lives of ordinary Bahamians, and that governments continued to prioritise foreign capital investment and the promotion of the Bahamas as a tax haven to the detriment of spending on social welfare or any attempt at wealth redistribution. Furthermore, by the time long-term PLP leader Lynden O. Pindling was defeated at the polls in 1992 he was facing charges of corruption and of supporting drug trafficking. The items here deal with all these inter-related issues, with the bulk of the material devoted to the pre-independence elections of the 1960s during which the transition to black-led governments occurred.