The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

IT IS possible to use the pain that people are going through to further a political objective, but political victories have a double-sidedness to them that the winners fail to anticipate in terms of actual reckoning. Some run from it by remaining in "campaign mode", reminding us, even from church podiums of what they were elected to do.

The Progressive Liberal Party has a particular problem. They have always been elected at times when the nation was on an even keel and all they have had to do was step in and keep the ball rolling, but this time is very different. Some perceptual arguments have been constructed to support why they have been elected, but none of those "perceptions" are holding any water, now that the results of May 7th are being scrutinized.

There was no "landslide victory", if the non-PLP votes are added together, and the number also indicates that it was more of a "one-sided defeat".

Observers are finding out that disgruntled FNM's and the Mortgage plan promises may have been the deciding factor. The Party was successful in playing a game that saw a politicising of the many problems, especially crime, but now that "victory" has been secured that "politicisation" has come back to haunt them.

Politicisation of any issue assumes that a political remedy is readily available, but the ranking leaders of the Party have always chosen constituencies where they were not intellectually challenged. All they have done over the years is show up at funerals. They have lived in one area and represented another, different constituencies that are separated by class and social distinctions.

Former DPM Cynthia Pratt tried to present a new paradigm for leadership, but I do not think it was embraced by the leaders in the "people's party".

This time, the Party is plunged into a circumstance, where they will not be spending a lot of time in their suits and neckties, and though the intellectual component is present they will have to choose wisdom over being smart. The smart talk has to be thrown out of the window and the ground level exercise of reducing the space between words and deeds must be a constant.

The country that they met on May 7th can run by itself, the real job of this government is the tackling of the issues that are endemic to a mind set and expectation that they have coddled and promoted throughout their different tenures.

The chickens have come home, the eagle has landed, whoop there it is, whatever you want to call it and it is on schedule if history is to be served. Next year will make 40 years of Independence and the performance of the Party that brought us into 1973, will impact how we celebrate that momentous occasion. The Party will not accomplish all that was promised, but their commitment to the task at hand, must be seen by the voting population; especially that middle to upper-class, self-employed grouping who will bear the brunt of whatever "plan", the government comes up with.

EDWARD HUTCHESON

Nassau,

May, 2012.