Forcing Reality to fit the Facts... (a Battle of Perspectives)

Pioneer of Western Democracy Benjamin Franklin is noted to have said - “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” What happened in the 2013 Local Government Election was anything but that, and the sad reality is a twenty six percent voter turnout is a failure for all parties. With less than ten percent of the entire population weighing on something as important as the delivery of government services despite the most bruising and possibly the most expensive election campaign in our recent history, questions need to be asked.

The media and commentators covering the results skirted asking any representation questions and stayed true to the popularity model of electioneering, as if that has ever worked for us at any time in the past. CEO of the Trinidad & Tobago Chamber of Commerce Catherine Kumar in her contribution on one of the networks made light sport of the money being spent on these campaigns as an 'investment,' but failed to clarify an investment in what exactly or from where the returns of those investments are supposed to come. On this Benjamin said - “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”

So is that where we are? Are we at the end of our Republic? A cursory glance at the broken-ness of our existing systems of governance seem to suggest yes. Education, health, social development, law & order all seem to be almost beyond repair. Income and the distribution of national wealth, food security, water management and the environment are all in varying stages of dysfunction, leaving results to be based on us calling whatever could be deemed a success a success regardless of what we initially set out to do.

Our professional class have for the most part abandoned the ethics of their professions and are either gorging or fighting to gorge, leaving many to wonder from where are we to find this new and magical leadership required to save us from the looming collapse?

Franklin also said 'Never confuse motion with action,' and that is a lesson many promoting the circular reasoning that a victory is a victory regardless would do well to learn. You cannot claim a win if your victory comes at the cost of devastating loss, can you? Can half a ship sink leaving the rest to sail away?

From here Benjamin takes us into the deep end of the pool and exposes us all for our political laziness and democratic irresponsibility: “This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.”

We are mired in that place, where the best intentions of well reasoned men and women are trampled underfoot by the largely clueless masses, rushing to exchange their vote for reward. An entire system reduced to free jerseys bearing hidden prizes, the promise of box drains or box drain contracts, cheap theatre, bacchanal and scandal.

Benjamin cautioned “Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame,” and I am sure those who set off with the peril of others in mind at the start of this campaign are reaping this as their just and favored reward. We as a people need to stand guard against the influence of easily bought elections “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” What was he warning us of there? Can we even see ourselves in that picture?

My last Benjamin Franklin quote is the one that best describes our fifty one years of independence and explains our virtual rogue's gallery of former leaders who themselves chose the route of easy advantage - “There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and more frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.”

Hundreds of millions of dollars, salacious and sometimes disgusting allegations and a split vote later, and the lowest voter turnout in our nation's history delivers something like respectability to a broken party, humbles an incumbent and assigns an upstart to an early grave.

In some camps there will be celebrating, in others there will be analyzing, but the most important development is that number, that 26% voter turnout, that is going to have to be addressed. Because no amount of denial can hide the fact that despite such a hotly contested race, in a situation where almost three quarters of the people who are registered to vote choose not to, it says that the majority of the population are interested in none of the above.

We need to deal with that.