duanesands

Duane Sands’ ratification as the Free National Movement (FNM) candidate for Bamboo Town ahead of the next general election did not happen in isolation. It follows more than a decade of running, and now his party presents a new strategy.

Click to watch Duane Sands’ introduction as an FNM candidate for Bamboo Town

Here is a timeline of the key moments that led to this decision:

2010 — Duane Sands’ first test in Elizabeth

Sands first entered frontline electoral politics during the Elizabeth by-election in 2010.
He razor-thinly lost to Ryan Pinder, signaling that Elizabeth was a competitive and difficult seat for the FNM.

2012 — Duane Sands made a second attempt, but lost again

Sands again contested Elizabeth in the 2012 General Election, facing Pinder once more.
He lost the seat a second time.

2017 — A breakthrough victory

After two losses, persistence paid off, Sands returned for a third attempt to run in Elizabeth in 2017 and won against Progressive Liberal Party Henry Storr.

The victory sent him to Parliament and to the Cabinet as the Minister of Health.

2021 — Another lost

In the 2021 General Election, Sands lost the Elizabeth seat to JoBeth Coleby-Davis, as the FNM suffered a big defeat at the polls.

Post 2021 — Duane Sands’ party reassessment period

Following the election loss, the FNM entered a rebuilding phase with new leader Michael Pintard, reviewing past performance, assessing candidate placement, and identifying constituencies most likely to return seats

Political analysts say for candidates like Sands, with ministerial experience and national profile, parties and executives can typically weigh whether continued contests in marginal seats best serve overall electoral strategy.

2025 — Duane Sands ratified for Bamboo Town

The FNM officially ratified Sands as its candidate for Bamboo Town, a constituency long regarded as an FNM stronghold, though it lost in the 2021 election.

Click to watch the ratification.

 Why Bamboo Town matters:

• Historically leaned FNM—Tennyson Wells (1992), Branville McCartney (2007), Renward Wells (2012)
• Can be viewed as more favorable than the Elizabeth constituency
• It represents an opportunity for the FNM to reclaim ground since the lost to the PLP in 2021, while positioning Sands, an experienced candidate, in a constituency the party believes it can win.

FNM Elizabeth MP Duane Sands did not survive at the voting polls. Instead, PLP Jobeth Coleby-Davis beat him to become the new parliamentarian for the Elizabeth constituency.

Sands expected a win at the polls. He seemed to have a good repertoire with his constituents and touted his list of accomplishments in the area.

Poll numbers showed that he and Coleby-Davis were running a close race but it was not enough for Sands to win.

Why it matters

Sands was endorsed by former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham in the weeks leading up to the election. Ingraham showed up in the Elizabeth constituency to publicly express support for Sands, whom he called “a great man,” even expressing hope that Sands would become prime minister.

Ingraham did not endorse Minnis during this election cycle, as he had done in 2017.

Sands’ loss a the polls means he would not have the opportunity to run against Minnis for party leader when the FNM holds convention.

The big picture

In 2017, Sands won the Elizabeth constituency, doubling the votes to beat the PLP candidate.

Sands was a former minister of health but resigned last year amid controversy over donated 2,500 COVID-19 test swabs, when the donors were allowed to disembark on New Providence and quarantine at home while the country’s borders were closed.

Ingraham was hoping that Sands would have been re-elected to the House and eventually become prime minister, which he likened to his experience.

Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham reemerged, this time to endorse Elizabeth MP Duane Sands.

Ingraham appeared in the Elizabeth constituency saying he hopes Sands wins his seat in the upcoming election and possibly becomes prime minister of the Bahamas.

Ingraham said Sands is “a good man.”

A delighted Sands said he was humbled by Ingraham’s endorsement.

Ingraham has not publicly endorsed Prime Minister Hubert Minnis but questioned Minnis’ decision to hold an early election amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In recent weeks, Ingraham and former Prime Minister Perry Christie spoke to the media about the elections after viewing the body of former Governor-General Arthur Hanna.

Both men who seemed to have become ‘best friends’, are not often seen in public, and are often hounded by the media for comments on public discourse when they do appear, differ with Minnis’s decision to hold elections now.

Today, Ingraham rehashed his disapproval.

“There is nothing that can I can say that can explain that better than reality. In the middle of this pandemic, we are having an election, that speaks for itself.”

The relationship between Ingraham and Minnis was believed to have soured after Minnis said in 2017 that “the Ingraham era is over.” The men are not known to have a relationship.

Former Minister of Health Duane Sands received a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine after he got two shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Sands revealed his decision to mix and match vaccines during his presentation in the House of Assembly as he made his case for COVID-19 vaccines as infections surge in the country.

It is not known the time frame in which Sands received the booster shot of Pfizer but he said it became necessary as a doctor working with COVID-19 patients.

“I like many other people are fully vaccinated. But because I happen to spend so much time in the belly of the beast…I have gone a little bit further. So I have received two AstraZeneca shots and one Pfizer shot.”

Sands said he does not suggest that individuals take three shots, but he is convinced that vaccination is an integral part of getting out of the pandemic.

“If we are going to get out of this mess, then vaccination is going to be a critical part of the way forward.”

Experts vary on whether or not people should mix and match vaccines.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization advised against mixing and matching doses due to a lack of evidence.

WHO’s chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan cautioned that taking additional doses beyond the two-dose regimen or mixing and matching vaccines is “a little bit of a dangerous trend.”

However, experts like Dr. Vin Gupta, a professor at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said he is advising patients who got J&J to get a Pfizer or Moderna mRNA dose to combat delta.

Researchers from Oxford University recently published findings that combining the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine with a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine generates a “robust” immune response against the virus.

Former Minister of Health Duane Sands received his first dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine today.

Sands enthusiastically posted ‘the jab’ to his social media page.

Why it matters

Sands resigned as Minister of Health amid the COVID-19 pandemic and has since opposed the emergency orders imposed by the competent authority.  When the topic of vaccination arose in January, Sands questioned the rapidity of the vaccine saying the Bahamas should be cautious and complete its own investigation into the vaccines.

Then earlier this month, Sands said he endorses the use of vaccines in the Bahamas after examining the data and asking “serious questions.”

After acknowledging his reservations about vaccines, Sands said in the House of Assembly, “… right now, you have to go with what you can get — not go with the best, go with what you can get.”

The House of Assembly passed the resolution to extend the state of emergency to November 30. The resolution passed, with 14 ‘yes’ votes and zero ‘no’ votes.

Although Opposition Leader Brave Davis and Former Health Minister Duane Sands made presentations during the debate and opposed the extension, they were absent in the House during the voting process.

Also absent in the House of Assembly were Cabinet ministers with the exception of Minister Foreign Affairs Darren Henfield and Minister of State for Disaster and Reconstruction Iram Lewis who were not present when other members were exposed to Works Minister Desmond Bannister.

Bannister tested positive for COVID-19 last week. He remains asymptomatic.

In his presentation, Sands said Cabinet should have stopped meeting in Charlotte’s House building for meetings, even opposing the meeting of Parliament during these periods. He, like House Speaker Halson Moultrie, advocate for virtual meetings or a larger setting that accommodates social distancing.

Cabinet ministers are quarantined for 14-days, beginning from the point of exposure to November 4th.

Former Minister of Health Duane Sands does not support the continuation of the Emergency Order. He reiterated that the Bahamas is underperforming in the fight against COVID-19 when compared to other countries, so the country should enact a few of his recommendations.

Sands said unlike sports which the Bahamas has championed, the Bahamas is behind and losing to COVID-19, because the strategy implemented by the government is ineffective.

“The process that we have engaged in over the 6 to 8 months have not worked. They have not worked, Mr. Speaker. We are underperforming as a nation. We are underperforming to all of our peers in the region–as it relates to cases, 80 percent of the rest of the world, and as it related to deaths, 89% of the rest of the world.”

Why it matters

Parliamentarians met in the House of Assembly on Monday to debate the extension of the state of emergency to November 30. The Bahamas has been under an emergency order since March 18 because of the rapid spread of the deadly virus.

Sands’ Recommendations

1. Build a modular COVID-19 facility of approximately 100 beds for the concentration of COVID-19 patients
2. Conduct 1000 antigen and RTPCR tests per day
3. Publish a plan quickly and educate the public
4. Implement effective lockdowns, not on-and-off lockdowns
5. Bring back participatory government
6. End the role of the competent authority, which opposes participatory government
7. Promote exercise among the public as a large percentage of Bahamians has non-communicable diseases
8. Support access to drugs like Remdesivir and herbal medicine
9. Improve food security
10. Lift the ban on masks importation

The Big Picture

Because of the rise in COVID-19 cases, the government extended the emergency order many other times. The country has seen a rise in cases since March. On Monday, officials presented nearly 3,000 active cases. Weekend lockdowns with the implementation of a 7 pm curfew Monday through Friday, with the closure of businesses, has become a public debate.