Hold the Prime Minister to his word

THE EDITOR: Can I just briefly comment on an article in Newsday May 23 in which Patrick Manning is quoted as saying “Nobody is above the law, and that includes the Prime Minister?”

Whether one is for or against the PM (with all his faults) he has, by this statement, aligned himself, at the least, with ethics and probity in public affairs. If he were now to do or say anything not in compliance to, or in the spirit of, this unambiguous statement, he would rightly be held in contempt and expose himself to ridicule. We should all mark the date. Can anyone, by the way, seriously have expected a previous office holder, one who stated, in a public address that “people support a political party for what they can get out of it” to have ever been able of making, in sincerity of course, a similar, comparable statement and, importantly, to have been believed by anyone?

That, I believe is an important comparison that from persons on either side of the political divide should receive unbiased consideration and contemplation. Suitability of high office should surely be based on words and deeds not on any blind allegiance centred on the cheap hero worship of championing one sector of society over another or using democratic politics as a personal and vindictive battle ground or as a means of aggrandisement. I am not suggesting for one minute that the PNM is in any way virtuous but they are at last waking up, it seems, to the absolute essential necessity of integrity in public affairs and, let’s face it, the alternative would merely be a return of the unabashed and bold faced plunder of before.

GEOFF HUDSON
Port-of-Spain