Arthur Dion Hanna

Who is Arthur Dion Hanna?

Arthur Dion "A.D." Hanna is a Bahamian politician who served as Governor-General of the Bahamas from 2006 to 2010.

Hanna has been active in Bahamian politics since the 1950s. As a member of the Progressive Liberal Party, Hanna represented the Ann's Town, Nassau constituency as a MP in the Bahamas' House of Assembly from 1960 to 1992.

During this time, Hanna assumed a number of important cabinet posts, including Deputy Prime Minister of the Bahamas from 1967 to 1984.

In 1984, Hanna resigned his post as Deputy to Prime Minister Lynden Pindling in protest at the retention by Pindling of cabinet colleague who were heavily criticised by a Royal Commission of Enquiry of that same year. The Commission was established to investigate claims of high-level corruption allegedly linked to the flourishing drugs trade of the 1980s.

His resignation came within a week of the firing from the Cabinet of Hubert Ingraham and Perry Christie, who also were said to have taken a strong stand against the presence in the cabinet of ministers tarnished by the commission and who both later served successive terms as Prime Minister.