Editorial for November 04

Editorial
For November 04

With one day to go,
a time for reflection

It is customary for the election engines to rumble on idle on the day before elections as political parties change gears from campaigning to facilitating the voting process, ensuring that their supporters are delivered to the polling stations on election day.
This will be the last crucial element in campaign planning for the expensive, 24-7 electioneering engines that have been running at top speed for the last month, delivering a cacophony of music, messages, meetings, celebrations and advertising that has sought to represent the perspectives of the three parties contesting the election of 2007.
Today is traditionally a time of reflection and consideration for the electorate after engaging the views of the rivals for political office, a time of rest for campaign workers and a last opportunity for candidates to engage in quiet walkabouts in their communities, raising their profile one last time before the voting booths open tomorrow.
The rise of a third party in the race, one that effectively positioned itself as a viable rival and not the amusing afterthought that so many political alternatives have ended as on the road to voting day in prior elections speaks to a growing maturity and diversity of view in the electorate, which proved willing to listen to the three often divergent views of the leadership challenges facing the country.
One citizen, Jasema Mungalsingh, launched a campaign, apparently personally funded, to encourage a commonsense evaluation of the political representation in each of the 41 constituencies that embraced appropriateness for the task of representing the community’s needs over party branding.
That maturity of thinking has not always been reflected by the most ardent and least open-minded supporters of some parties.
The CoP has been hardest hit by this trend, the violence putting one candidate, David St Clair, in an amnesiac coma in the hospital after being planassed by persons unknown with a clearly different choice for political representation and other members claiming to have been threatened by fist, cutlass and gun.
Campaign offices have been vandalised and posters torn down, but we are, mercifully, at the end of another political campaign period with few serious injuries and just one murder attributed to the political process. Ironically, October 2007 proved to be the bloodiest month of the year, with dozens of murders logged over the course of the last five weeks.
The unruly nature of much of the political “dirty tricks” perpetrated on parties and candidates and the resulting concerns of candidates in all the political parties got the Commissioner of Police involved in ramping up police protection and presence on the campaign trail.
On Friday, CoP Trevor Paul urged the supporters of the three major political parties to conduct themselves appropriately during rallies and in the run-up to voting day.
In calling for peace, the Commissioner appealed to the political leadership of all three parties to “control” their supporters at their rallies.
Today, the message from the political leaders of all three parties, the PNM, the UNC-A and the CoP should be of peace. The time for persuasion is done, and the divisions that have been artificially created in order to distinguish one party from another must give way to healing, unity and progress.
Now it’s time to let the people have their voice and their choice.