Will our good fortune take another dose of salts?

THE EDITOR: There is no reason for the PNM to gloat at the results of the recent local elections and together with the UNC should collectively seriously wonder at their relevance in the politics of TT. That all the political parties together could only muster 37.1 percent of the interest of the electorate is cause for concern. One shudders at what percentage of the total potential vote each individual party earned and how do such numbers legitimately reflect the people’s representation. The failure to turn out to vote is one way of letting you know what we think of the utility or otherwise of local government. It implies that local government bodies are of little interest to the masses and a reflection of the political mindset of the parties (most of which have had their turn at government to make them much more meaningful) to wish to dominate all aspects of the countries activities. It would not have been so bad if central government itself was effective and had a good record at local level.

A local government representative in the eyes of most of us is a sinecure, a meaningless appendage to the country’s payroll; with no authority, no genuine responsibilities, can do nothing unless dictated to from above and one wonders what must be their personal mindset to accept such mendicancy. Lest we forget our history, we had a black power uprising when we were ruled by a black government, one possible reason could have been that we felt that we had no voice in how the show was being run. That political philosophy does not seem to have changed since. To my PM, once again we have the benefit of abundant resources (similar to the oil boom days), we are seeing abundant crime and a total disregard for the laws of the country in many other public spheres, in the way we drive, curse publicly, steal, make noise, you name it, we excel. Perhaps we are once again being told something. Are our youths taking matters into their own hands once again, this time in a different and perhaps much more dangerous way? Should we not make a serious and effective effort to at least try to make us all feel relevant to the governance of our beloved country by ensuring that these representatives be seen to be worthy of the efforts of the small group that elected them to office? If only to generate a more lively public interest in our democracy?

Could we hope to see less central and doctor politics, with clearer understanding of the real meaning of the much abused term of “people empowerment” lest we make the same mistake again? Will we once again see our very fortuitous financial good fortune once again take another dose of salts as in the 70’s? Because we have never seen it fit to make an in-depth review of the reasons for the 1970 and 1990 historical events, are we likely to commit the same errors again? The time has come Mr PM to make a genuine effort to make true democracy mean the involvement of all of us in a useful and pragmatic way. One such effort would be to assign significant unbiased responsibilities to this bunch of local government bodies and at least make them earn their keep. Give us people to whom we could turn in matters of direct interest as our representatives and not some hard-to-reach, much too busy politicians, ostensibly engaged in matters for which we see very little returns. Never let it be said that some of us with no political biases but with a genuine interest for the welfare of TT have not attempted to offer some guidelines and exposed our fears at what we see as the potential for downstream disasters. We claim no omnipotence nor total grasp of all that is entailed in assuming the ominous responsibility of running a country, but we can see and feel where we are hurting.

C E BERRIDGE
Port-of-Spain