And My Final Words On The Manifestos.

Submitted by Taran Rampersad on Sat, 05/22/2010 - 12:12

I started picking through the manifestos - both here and here. And when I started, I fully intended to complete a good fact check on each manifesto. To some degree, I have - and honestly, after a few days of staring at the 'contents' of each manifesto... I'm somewhat disgusted. So I stopped.

But my disgust isn't really so much about the contents as much as it is about people's reactions to the contents. This week, fortunately, we saw some dueling rhetoric between the political parties about manifestos. And that is healthy. But all of that assumes that a large number of people in the country don't read and are incapable of critical thought. And that is an insult to a lot of people that I know - and the education system of Trinidad and Tobago. Or maybe it isn't an insult. Maybe it's a description. And maybe that's why I am disgusted.

Or maybe I'm disgusted because these manifestos are the best that either political party could come up with - or would come up with. Lets be serious - at the end of the day these are politicians who aren't known for living up to their promises.

But I must compare myself to the politicians here and find myself of their ilk. I said I would do something and I didn't complete it. The good news is that no one of the readers voted for me.

That said, the PNM manifesto reads more like a CV than a manifesto, complete with exaggeration and innuendo like so many well written CVs. But at an interview, employers can weed that out. In an election, the interviewers typically don't - and the PNM counted on that.

The People's Partnership manifesto reads more like an application for U.N. funding, with a philosophy on sustainability that is less fictional than that of the PNM manifesto - while promising things that themselves are dubious within the philosophy. It's flowery and idealistic like many people I know - but it isn't grounded.

So... the lesser of two evils. It was foolish of me to think that people were interested in what to vote for. This election, whichever side, is about what to vote against. And there is plenty on either side to vote against.

Too bad the losers won't be forced into retirement. Instead we keep them around as Opposition...

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Comments

Submitted by From Foreign (not verified) on Sat, 05/22/2010 - 23:52.

To all those people who choose not to vote, or vote by party, are not only hurting themselves but the entire country. The better party may not get your support but come what may a government will be selected. By with-holding your vote for the better party, you think you are sending the parties a message that there are still a lot of uninterested or undecided voters and much more need to be done by the parties to get their votes. Well the parties will see it differently, and that is, a certain part of the population do not care what government they get, because they will vote for us till-de-die, or by choosing not to vote, and for this reason the government lower their standards and performance to match the population perceived interest in the government. So if more of the population voted for the better candidate, and not for party, the government will feel as though they are being watched by more of the voters and hence will have to up their standards and performance. Their chance of being re-elected will rest solely on their performance and not on till-ah-die supporters.
Let’s say for e.g. we have a 30% turnout and party A won the election. What kind of mandate is that? Do you think party A on forming the government will rule with any commitment? For them, if the people don’t care to vote, I will not care to rule, and what is happening now is just that. They know most of the support is from till-ah-die voters, so they can do whatever they want. Party A can do whatever they think, because there support base is there till-de-die. So do you think party A need to work for votes. No they can drain the treasury and can still get the till-ah-die votes.
If we give party A a strong mandate to rule then on forming the government they know that the people is in control and if they don’t perform come next time would be voted out. So I think by voting for party or choosing not to vote is a grave mistake and a big part of the reason as to why the governing of the country is in such a mess. If you don’t care to vote smart, they will not care to rule smart, simply put.