All of the problems that plague our nation can be attributed to poor governance meted out over the years from independence to now bar none. The lack of anything like a vision that unites all of the people continues to confound our national development and has left us with a hodgepodge of policies and legislation in some major areas of governance that accomplishes little other than to keep the people at war with each other over trivialities.
As it stands now we are being governed by a barely functional UNC led coalition many predict are unlikely to survive the full electoral term, and waiting in the wings as the only alternative is an unrepentant, unreformed PNM eager to pick up from where they left off despite having only just been removed from Office for failure and corruption on a massive scale. For their part they seem prepared to do nothing other than to wait the current government out, hoping to capitalize on their collapse and doing anything in their power to hasten its occurrence. It seems that in our politics political parties do not have to be good, they just need to be not as bad as the next guy.
If by some miracle the Partnership were to survive and were to be successful in any meaningful way, that success would force change within the PNM if that party ever wanted to hold the reins of power again; If that were to occur, instead of working to the lowest acceptable denominator our Parties would be encouraged to improve their game to stay politically relevant and compete with each other in service of the people, but we are not that lucky.
There is a serious question that needs to be asked and someone needs to ask it. Of the one point three million Trinidadians and Tobagonians alive today, is this really the best we can do?
It should be sensible to assume that the more options we have to dilute the stranglehold the entrenched and racially separated Parties have the greater our chance for something like representation in the Parliament, so then why are we not forming new Parties and working to build support one constituency at a time? We would be much better served as a nation if our House of Representatives was made up of nine or ten Parties working in coalition and arriving at policy implementation through negotiation and consensus instead of the dictatorial absurdity that occurs now.
There are many who would have you believe that this cannot work only because they are wed to the status quo and benefit from it somehow and you have to do your best to ignore them. The truth is that this is the future of global politics and, as was clearly demonstrated on May 24th, the people of this country are open to political experimentation if only to find a formula that works. To my mind devolving centralized power away from those two failed institutions could only be a good thing and is the perfect way to go. Our democracy is built on representation of the people, and until the power is back in the hands of the people we will continue our slow decline to failed nation status.
Of all the active politicians currently in our employ on both sides of the political divide there are few that should be trusted and fewer still that could be respected. They have conspired to defraud and have twisted the rules in their own favor to make corruption and pilfering a sport, and at the end of that tiresome day it is the people of this country who lose. We will not get hospitals that work and playing fields and community centers in the communities that need them most as long as one Party or another can take any constituency's vote for granted. We need to change the game and send representatives to the Parliament who reside in the constituency, who have demonstrated devotion to their community by their involvement and service and it is on the backs of people like these should we build our governments.
Trinidad & Tobago continues to be blessed as twin jewels that together form a richly abundant and beautiful tropical paradise, but it is cursed by a people so politically confused as to line up every five years and vote against themselves by picking always from the lesser of two evils who seem hell bent on proving just how evil they could really be.
There is a serious question that needs to be asked and someone needs to ask it. Of the one point three million Trinidadians and Tobagonians alive today, is this really the best we can do?
It should be sensible to assume that the more options we have to dilute the stranglehold the entrenched and racially separated Parties have the greater our chance for something like representation in the Parliament, so then why are we not forming new Parties and working to build support one constituency at a time? We would be much better served as a nation if our House of Representatives was made up of nine or ten Parties working in coalition and arriving at policy implementation through negotiation and consensus instead of the dictatorial absurdity that occurs now.
There are many who would have you believe that this cannot work only because they are wed to the status quo and benefit from it somehow and you have to do your best to ignore them. The truth is that this is the future of global politics and, as was clearly demonstrated on May 24th, the people of this country are open to political experimentation if only to find a formula that works. To my mind devolving centralized power away from those two failed institutions could only be a good thing and is the perfect way to go. Our democracy is built on representation of the people, and until the power is back in the hands of the people we will continue our slow decline to failed nation status.
Of all the active politicians currently in our employ on both sides of the political divide there are few that should be trusted and fewer still that could be respected. They have conspired to defraud and have twisted the rules in their own favor to make corruption and pilfering a sport, and at the end of that tiresome day it is the people of this country who lose. We will not get hospitals that work and playing fields and community centers in the communities that need them most as long as one Party or another can take any constituency's vote for granted. We need to change the game and send representatives to the Parliament who reside in the constituency, who have demonstrated devotion to their community by their involvement and service and it is on the backs of people like these should we build our governments.
Trinidad & Tobago continues to be blessed as twin jewels that together form a richly abundant and beautiful tropical paradise, but it is cursed by a people so politically confused as to line up every five years and vote against themselves by picking always from the lesser of two evils who seem hell bent on proving just how evil they could really be.
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