The electorate and the elections

16.NOV.10

Editor: In December, Vincentians will go the polls with more questions than answers. In a matter of several days, the Prime Minister will advise the Governor General to dissolve parliament and announce the election date shortly thereafter. The blitz, glamour and drama that is now synonymous with election campaigns will be unveiled by all parties and drown any hope for an intelligent, sober, reflective and purposeful debate on issues and policies.{{more}}

At this time, there are many of you who just cannot wait for the main event to start. For a fact, you have not really stopped campaigning whether for or against since the last general elections so many years ago. You do not care what the parliamentarians/politicians in the party you support say or do or even don’t say or do. If you support ULP, your open disgust, contempt and bias toward the opposition NDP is quite evident except in your own eyes. On the other hand, if you are NDP, your demonization of the ULP administration hamstrings your call for a kinder, gentler society while exposing your unashamed quest for governance above all else. In both parties, you are called the base. What a sad tale!

In recent times, there seems to be a fraction of the electorate that can be termed ‘independent’ and maybe if the English Language would pardon ‘independant’. Independent voters are those who put country before party. They may support a party but not blindly as an extremist base voter whose compass on fact or fiction, right or wrong, moral or immoral is only paraded as red or yellow. Independent voters think aloud whether at party caucuses or in the communities in which they live, work or share.

On the contrary, there are the wolves in sheep clothing ‘independants’. They portray themselves as open minded, honest intellectuals who engage in debate on issues and policies but really are just dependent on political handouts of contracts for services etc. They really are just base voters in jacket and tie suits. However, there seems to be a new breed of ‘independants’ also, who from a distance promote the ideals of justice, fairness, reason etc. Their appearance is almost Christ-like, but only to cosmetically hide their hearts filled with bitterness, malice and vile thoughts. If you listen carefully to the word from their pulpits, or discern from the barrage of weekly newspaper columns and letter writing, and radio and political rostrum presentations, you will recognize these ‘independants’.

In the end, there are those who just couldn’t care less. Do I agree with them, NO! Do I sympathize, YES! In many cases, these are the young, disenfranchised, economically weak members of our society, who have seen their grandparents and parents become political jumbies with ‘do as I say but not as I do’ conduct and attitudes.

Where in the electorate do you fit?

Adaiah J. Providence-Culzac
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