Free National Movement
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Free National Movement
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|---|---|
 |
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| Party Leader | Dr. Hubert Minnis |
| Founded | 1971 |
| Split from | Progressive Liberal Party |
| Headquarters | Mackey Street, N. 144 P.O. Box N-10713, Nassau |
| Youth wing | Torch Bearers |
| Ideology | Conservatism |
| Political position | Centre-right |
| International affiliation | None |
| Colours | Red |
| Slogan | "We Deliver!" |
| House of Assembly |
8 / 38
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| Senate |
4 / 16
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| Website | |
| ourfnm |
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The Free National Movement (FNM) is a liberal political party in The Bahamas formed in the 1970s, led by Cecil Wallace Whitfield. The current leader of the party is Dr. Hubert Minnis and his deputy is Peter Turnquest. It is the largest opposition party in the Bahamas by number of seats in the Legislature.
The FNM, led at the time by Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, dropped its total share of votes in the 2012 Bahamian General Elections (obtaining only 42.1 percent of the vote, compared to 48.7 percent by the Progressive Liberal Party). The Progressives won 29 of the seats in the legislature and thus the government, compared to the FNM's 9. Ingraham subsequently resigned, both as party leader as well as the Member of Parliament for North Abaco. Following this series of events the FNM went on to lose the by-election triggered by Ingraham´s retirement held on 15 October 2012, reducing the total FNM seat count to 8 of the 38 seats in the House of Assembly.
The FNM was established at Jimmy Shepherd’s house on Spring Hills Farms in Fox Hill in 1971. The Free-PLP were a breakaway group of eight MPs from the then governing Progressive Liberal Party. This group, which was known as the "Dissident Eight," included Cecil Wallace Whitfield, Arthur Foulkes, Warren J. Levarity, Maurice Moore, Dr. Curtis McMillan , James (Jimmy) Shepherd, Dr.Elwood Donaldson and George Thompson. Following meetings held at Spring Hill Farms, the FNM officially became a political party in October 1971, with Cecil Wallace Whitfield as its leader.
The other group, the UBP, was one of the main political parties in the Bahamas and had governed the country since the advent of party politics in 1958, until it lost the 1967 general election by a paper thin margin to the Opposition PLP.
The UBP party's leadership was predominantly white while blacks made up most of the citizenry. Once out of power, its leaders decided that the party's time was at an end and they looked to the Free-PLP to form a new party that would follow a conservative party line. The fusion was called the Free National Movement.
The party grew in part by uniting independent black voters and the old UBP voter base. However, these were heady days for the governing PLP, who led the country to independence in 1973, and the FNM failed to gain much more than 40% of the vote in a string of general elections defeats.
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