What do the mi­nor po­lit­i­cal ag­gre­ga­tions have to of­fer the elec­torate and by ex­ten­sion Trinidad and To­ba­go, the so­ci­ety, the econ­o­my, and the civil­i­sa­tion? Does the lead­er­ship of any one of the many of the “pick up sides” (Best) ala Sun­day morn­ing crick­et in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, hon­est­ly be­lieve its “par­ty” can win a gen­er­al elec­tion as an in­di­vid­ual or­gan­i­sa­tion and be­come the gov­ern­ment?

If the an­swer is “yes”, that group, its leader and ex­ec­u­tive and those who will join them are com­plete­ly delu­sion­al. The hard elec­toral re­sults of every elec­tion since In­de­pen­dence have shown that blocs of the elec­torate want some­thing far more sub­stan­tial than what these mi­nor ag­gre­ga­tions have of­fered.

Is it con­ceiv­able that the lead groups can muster in­ter­est and en­thu­si­asm in at least parts of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to come to­geth­er to trans­form the pol­i­tics, the so­ci­ety and its so­cial re­la­tion­ships to de­vel­op a so­cio-cul­tur­al frame with­in which the cul­tures, re­li­gious be­liefs and prac­tices can ex­ist with­out fear of dom­i­na­tion by the oth­er group?

Can these lead groups ac­quire the un­der­stand­ing and re­spect for the dif­fer­ent his­tor­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ences of the var­i­ous seg­ments of the pop­u­la­tion and be bold enough to es­chew the de­sire to shove each oth­er in­to some plas­tic mould un­rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the dif­fer­ent seg­ments of the so­ci­ety?

Most sig­nif­i­cant­ly, can the lead groups for change–I am not re­fer­ring to them as par­ties as that will give them some no­tion of an iden­ti­ty which will im­pede progress and lead to de­struc­tion–ac­quire the hu­mil­i­ty to recog­nise the vi­tal re­quire­ment to ground them­selves amongst the elec­torate to gain strength, le­git­i­ma­cy and to be able to sub­merge them­selves amongst the com­mu­ni­ties, ur­ban and rur­al, to fash­ion a new po­lit­i­cal cul­ture that will meet the needs of this di­vid­ed so­ci­ety, deeply and des­per­ate­ly in need of a new start?

For the pop­u­la­tion and poli­ty, the most de­mand­ing ques­tion must be: is there suf­fi­cient a de­sire for the trans­for­ma­tion from the so­ci­ety we now live in by a sig­nif­i­cant enough por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion who will at least be open to the con­struc­tion of a new ap­proach to the po­lit­i­cal, so­cial and cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tion?

Or is it that the seg­ment of the elec­torate out­side of the sup­port bases of the two ma­jor par­ties has be­come too dis­en­chant­ed by the post-In­de­pen­dence pol­i­tics and is there­fore un­like­ly to be re­spon­sive to yet an­oth­er at­tempt to per­suade them to seek po­lit­i­cal change?

The above ques­tions and more have been for­mu­lat­ed in the midst of an en­vi­ron­ment plagued by en­trenched bru­tal, on oc­ca­sion in­hu­mane crim­i­nal­i­ty ag­gra­vat­ed so­cial con­tention be­tween and amongst seg­ments of the so­ci­ety, the con­tin­u­ing and deep­en­ing eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty and the fast dis­ap­pear­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty for so­cial and eth­nic seg­ments of the pop­u­la­tion to climb out of their his­tor­i­cal con­di­tion.

The ques­tions are al­so framed by the ab­solute lack of trust be­tween the po­lit­i­cal tribes, Afro and In­do, and the cur­rent death wish for the so­ci­ety by race-dri­ven politi­cians in­tent on play­ing on the his­tor­i­cal fears of the two ma­jor eth­nic groups which make up the so­ci­ety.  

Em­bed­ded in the ques­tions are the ob­vi­ous fail­ures of all the po­lit­i­cal-gov­ern­men­tal regimes to im­ple­ment a pro­gramme to move away from the colo­nial econ­o­my and es­tab­lish a self-sus­tain­ing ef­fort for en­doge­nous growth and de­vel­op­ment.

I am not here ad­vo­cat­ing man­i­festo pro­pos­als and a slate of promis­es ar­tic­u­lat­ed in colour­ful slide pre­sen­ta­tions, and ral­lies with graf­fi­ti and so­ca and spir­it-filled sup­port­ers. Win­ston Dook­er­an once talked about “New Pol­i­tics” but it re­mained a la­bel and not a trans­for­ma­tion­al con­struct.

My ad­vo­ca­cy is for hon­est recog­ni­tion of the grav­i­ty of the des­per­ate and dan­ger­ous con­di­tion of the so­ci­ety, and the re­al pos­si­bil­i­ty of an un­rav­el­ling of all that has been es­tab­lished, the good, the bad and the ug­ly since In­de­pen­dence in 1962.  

That there is dis­af­fec­tion, at min­i­mum, with elec­toral pol­i­tics is found in the vot­er turnouts of the last two par­lia­men­tary elec­tions. The stats of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion show that in 2020 just 58 per cent of the elec­torate vot­ed, down from the 66.8 per cent of 2015 and a ma­jor de­cline from the 88.11 per cent of the elec­torate which vot­ed in 1961 when hopes were high for a na­tion yet to be born.

The re­al­i­ty of our po­lit­i­cal ex­is­tence is that the two ma­jor par­ties and the bulk of their sup­port­ers are com­fort­able with the ex­ist­ing po­lit­i­cal cul­ture. In a pre­vi­ous col­umn, I con­tend­ed that those par­ties ma­nip­u­late their sup­port­ers through the cor­rup­tion cam­paign­ing agen­da em­bed­ded in the racial pol­i­tics they have de­vel­oped and sus­tained over the decades.

If there was ever a need to wit­ness the fu­til­i­ty of the pol­i­tics, it has been clear­ly ev­i­dent in the present neg­a­tive back and forth of name-call­ing and the not too sub­lim­i­nal de­pen­dence on the ap­peal to race to shack­le the dif­fer­ing seg­ments of the elec­torate in place.

The chal­lenge for the as­pi­rants to po­lit­i­cal of­fice is to de­part from the pol­i­tics of di­vi­sion to ac­quire a ca­pac­i­ty for trans­for­ma­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“There’s a miss­ing gen­er­a­tion and if we don’t find them they will find us some­day,” a warn­ing from El­la An­dall.