Ex­act­ly one week from to­day, el­i­gi­ble cit­i­zens will vote in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

Gen­er­al­ly, lo­cal elec­tions do not gen­er­ate much in­ter­est or par­tic­i­pa­tion. How­ev­er the No­vem­ber 28 polls are tak­ing place just over a year af­ter gen­er­al elec­tions and months ahead of To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions, so all the par­ties tak­ing part see it as an in­di­ca­tor of their po­lit­i­cal health.

This is par­tic­u­lar­ly so for T&T's two main po­lit­i­cal par­ties, the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

A strong show­ing in these polls will give added im­pe­tus to the PNM's dri­ve to in­tro­duce re­forms to the lo­cal gov­ern­ment sys­tem, while UNC is hop­ing to re­gain po­lit­i­cal ground lost due to de­feats in re­cent gen­er­al, lo­cal and bye elec­tions.

For the small­er par­ties, the aim is to sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­crease po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence. With so much at stake, it is not sur­pris­ing that the cam­paign so far has been in­tense. How­ev­er, the neg­a­tive rhetoric em­a­nat­ing from some plat­forms is cause for con­cern.

It is dis­ap­point­ing that cam­paign­ing by the PNM and UNC has pre­dom­i­nant­ly fo­cussed on is­sues oth­er than the planned changes to the lo­cal gov­ern­ment sys­tem and the tenor of some of the speech­es de­liv­ered on the hus­tings is cause for con­cern.

In this re­gard, re­cent plat­form speech­es by Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds and Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, stand out as ex­am­ples of what should not be said, par­tic­u­lar­ly by ex­pe­ri­enced politi­cians.

Dur­ing a cam­paign stop in Ma­yaro, Mr Hinds urged PNM sup­port­ers to "kill the UNC dead!" Dr Mooni­lal, at a pub­lic meet­ing in Rio Claro, called on the crowds to fling roti in the face of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

The com­ments in them­selves are bad enough but what is par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ex­cus­able is that both men, front­line mem­bers of their par­ties, are ful­ly aware of the elec­tion code of con­duct es­tab­lished in Ju­ly 2014.

Five of the six par­ties con­test­ing the up­com­ing polls signed the code. The on­ly ex­cep­tion was the Na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty As­sem­bly (NSA), the po­lit­i­cal arm of the All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­er's Trade Union, which did not ex­ist when it came in­to be­ing. By sig­ing the code, the par­ties in­di­cat­ed sup­port for free and fair elec­tions in which vot­ers are able to cast their bal­lots with­out in­ter­fer­ence, fear, in­tim­i­da­tion or bribery.

This means that po­lit­i­cal lead­ers and their cam­paign team should dis­play more re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the charged at­mos­phere of elec­tion meet­ings when it does not take much to in­cite crowds of avid sup­port­ers.

In this plur­al so­ci­ety, the chal­lenge is in en­sur­ing tol­er­ance of di­ver­gent opin­ions. That is not pos­si­ble if is­sues are pre­sent­ed in ways that of­fer lit­tle dis­tinc­tion be­tween fact and opin­ion and in­stead caus­es mis­judg­ments and mis­in­for­ma­tion.

One un­for­tu­nate as­pect of T&T's po­lit­i­cal cul­ture is that crit­i­cisms of ri­val par­ties and can­di­dates of­ten go be­yond poli­cies and pro­grammes, past record or work and de­scend in­to in­sults and mau­vais langue. As a re­sult im­por­tant op­por­tu­ni­ties are lost to com­mu­ni­cate to the elec­torate, es­pe­cial­ly now that the coun­try is on the cusp of de­vo­lu­tion of au­thor­i­ty from cen­tral to lo­cal gov­ern­ment for the man­age­ment of com­mu­ni­ty mat­ters.

The neg­a­tive tone of the cam­paigns give the im­pres­sion that there is more in­ter­est in gain­ing and re­tain­ing pow­er than en­sur­ing the well-be­ing of cit­i­zens.

In the fi­nal days of this cam­paign it would be worth­while for the cam­paign teams to re­new their com­mit­ment to the prin­ci­ples con­tained in the code of con­duct.

In this plur­al so­ci­ety, the chal­lenge is in en­sur­ing tol­er­ance of di­ver­gent opin­ions. That is not pos­si­ble if is­sues are pre­sent­ed in ways that of­fer lit­tle dis­tinc­tion be­tween fact and opin­ion and in­stead caus­es mis­judg­ments and mis­in­for­ma­tion.