Senior Cabinet Minister and Englerston MP Glenys Hanna-Martin is being lined up to take over the Ministry of Immigration in a returning Davis administration, multiple sources close to the situation have told the Bahamas Herald.
The shift, described by one senior PLP insider as “a deliberate signal of seriousness,” would place one of the party’s most experienced parliamentarians and a trained attorney at the helm of what officials concede is the most legally complex and politically charged portfolio in government.
“This is not a sideways move. This is the Prime Minister putting his strongest hand on the file that matters most to Bahamians right now,” one source familiar with the deliberations said. “Border integrity, work permits, deportation policy, the regularisation framework — all of it. He wants a lawyer in that chair, and he wants somebody who is not afraid of the politics.”
A second source, speaking on condition of anonymity because Cabinet decisions are not finalised until after the polls close, said the move reflects an internal recognition within the Office of the Prime Minister that immigration enforcement and policy must be elevated as a first-term-two priority, “with structure, with law, and with backbone.”
Hanna-Martin, daughter of the late Sir Arthur Hanna, former Deputy Prime Minister and Governor-General, is one of the longest-serving members of the House of Assembly and has held multiple Cabinet portfolios across successive PLP administrations, including Transport, Youth, Sports and Culture, and most recently Education. She is widely regarded across both sides of the aisle as one of the most disciplined legal minds in active Bahamian politics.
Sources say it is precisely that combination — parliamentary seniority, legal training, and a reputation for not flinching under fire — that the Prime Minister is said to view as essential for Immigration heading into the next term.
“You cannot run Immigration on slogans. You run it on statutes,” a PLP strategist familiar with the conversations said. “She knows the law. She knows the House. She knows how to defend a policy in front of a microphone and in front of a judge.”
Insiders pushing the appointment privately frame the decision as a direct contrast with what they describe as the “five Cabinet seats, zero deliveries” record of the former FNM administration on immigration matters, citing the protracted and unresolved issues around the shanty town policy, work permit backlogs, and what one source called “an enforcement architecture left in disarray.”
“The country saw what happens when Immigration is handed to people who don’t take it seriously,” the strategist added. “This administration intends to take it seriously from day one.”
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