Promises...

It has become an almost acceptable practice among political Parties to make wild and outlandish promises to voters on the hustings only to break them once secured in Office. Relying on the length of the electoral term and 'Trinis' famous nine day memory, most candidates (if not all) are comfortable making these promises knowing that they will not be held accountable for them anyway and, wherever this had proven untrue prior, the consequences were usually easily overcome with trinkets and baubles when election time rolled back around.

While this may have been the case in the past, in these times of new media, real time information and an empowered and politically active electorate, I am not so sure those same rules apply; If I were to advise the Prime Minister I would tell her quite categorically and without hesitation that promises made this time, if not kept, will not go unpunished when next the election bell is wrung.

Like many other political observers who are of a similar view, I believe that that 'politics as usual' mentality was broken for good on May 24th. The firing and removal of Panday and Manning from power and Office in such a short space of time has opened the electorate's eyes to the real power of their votes and, though they may still be starved for options, it is clear that they are willing to get politically involved. I would be very surprised if at the next general election we are not overwhelmed with independent candidates throwing their hats in the ring and this could only be a good thing where promises made are concerned.

While I am quite aware that it is nearly impossible to be the government in a multi ethnic society (especially one as tribal as ours) and please all of the people all of the time, a good place to start must be in keeping campaign promises.

Surely the Prime Minister must be cognisant of the fact that there are people waiting to punish her for her government hoodwinking the elderly with the issue of the pensionable age of sixty over sixty five, and despite cries of misprint and other mistakes, the fact of the matter as it appears on the ground is that the government got into Office on a lie. This one act on Kamla's part put Rowley's Humpty Dumpty back together as a viable political option and demonstrates this position succinctly.

The promises of note not yet kept to date are: Parliamentary recall, fixed election dates (for both general and local government elections), term limits for Prime Ministers and referendum legislation. To the educated and the middle classes these promises represented a break with the old politics of entrench and rule and was seen as a means of preventing future would be dictators from consolidating too much power. The silent, non-invested voters who bought into the COP's 'New Politics' and who were motivated to push the People's Partnership over the top on May 24th may not be so easy to convince again. While a numerical minority, these people are not tied to any one political entity and hold the real balance of power in any election they take part in.

Crime reduction, traffic and even the divisive laptop promises were always seen to be vague and nebulous, but these issues came out of feedback with the people and represented an agreement with them; shifting from them only makes the government appear devious and as the old people say - 'fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.'

The legislative agenda must be amended to include referendum and recall legislation in the short term as  these issues need to be brought to the people as soon as possible. Fixed election dates and term limits do not require that much effort and should be done with haste; if they could find a way to afford the cost of lowering the pensionable age to sixty they should, as nothing else will demonstrate as clearly that this government is really of the people and for the people and not despite them.