Clearly, what wins elections is better messaging and better candidates - especially at the top of the ticket. So the questions are, or ought to be, who has the better message? Who has the better candidates? Well we'll find out soon enough what the electorate thinks. Both political Parties seem to be suffering from a dearth of viable candidates and both seem to be relying more on racial voting than on anything else.
Newspapers, television and radio are crammed with opinions from both sides as to who - PNM or UNC - has the better candidates and who can tackle the big problems of a red ink budget not to mention crime. Frankly, it is a big "if" as to whether or not either of the big Parties, based on their present rhetoric, really have a clue as to how they will go about fixing things. There has been a lot of talk about what is wrong and a lot of vague proposals as to how to fix what ails us, but nobody has made firm proposals and nobody has said what he/she will do if these proposals don't work. But it is laughable to describe them (the proposals) as rationalizing what is wrong with the country.
I've said it once and I'll say it again: there is only one reason for politics -only one reason for Government - and that is to make life better for the people! Full stop! There is no other reason. Perhaps if there were two Prime Ministerial candidates who were more attractive the proposed solutions might give us some hope. But as things stand at the moment the biggest (and mainly unspoken) challenge is race - and we are simply ignoring it and pretending that it doesn't exist. But the message is clear: if you are Black/African vote PNM. If you are Indian vote UNC. And to hell with anything else.
In the meantime (and seriously), whose proposals do YOU think will make YOUR life better within the next five years? And what will you do about it if things do not get better for YOU?
