GILLIAN LUCKY

For those who be­lieved that the bar of ar­ro­gance set by the last regime could not be raised any high­er, then you must be sore­ly dis­ap­point­ed. There are mem­bers of this Gov­ern­ment who be­lieve that they are kings and queens liv­ing in ivory tow­ers who are adored by their sub­jects and who will be wear­ing their crowns of pow­er for­ev­er. It is ei­ther that pow­er has gone to their heads or they are suf­fer­ing the ill ef­fects of the blue light syn­drome. It must be med­ical­ly un­safe to be sub­ject­ed to the high in­ten­si­ty of the lights and the blar­ing sirens each time these pow­er­ful in­di­vid­u­als have to be speed­i­ly dri­ven to their re­spec­tive points of des­ti­na­tion and so per­haps, in­stead of chastis­ing them, we should be sym­pa­thet­ic. It is just that this regime seems more com­fort­able por­tray­ing the pomp of the monar­chy and less in­clined to ad­here, even minute­ly, to the ethics, tra­di­tions and con­ven­tions of the West­min­ster sys­tem. To make mat­ters worse, they have be­come so aloof, that they no longer feel pain or con­cern for suf­fer­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. The pic­tures with politi­cians kiss­ing ba­bies, hug­ging chil­dren, shed­ding tears and play­ing emo­tion­al­ly to the crowds are mean­ing­less ges­tures when they are part of a po­lit­i­cal ploy geared sole­ly to­wards win­ning sup­port. The pro­pa­gan­da ma­chine be­ing used makes all for­mer mod­els ir­rel­e­vant and ob­so­lete be­cause the in­for­ma­tion dis­sem­i­nat­ed could ac­tu­al­ly lull the gullible in­to a false sense of se­cu­ri­ty. And the un­for­tu­nate re­al­i­ty is that many strong ad­vo­cates who once held for­mer gov­ern­ments to the high­est scruti­ny have sud­den­ly gone qui­et, leav­ing the play­ing field wide open for those who are strangers to the truth.

In need of help

Some min­is­ters are so con­ceit­ed that they refuse to lis­ten to the ad­vice or sug­ges­tions from those who are gen­uine­ly con­cerned about the wel­fare of the na­tion. Oth­ers would even at­tempt to hu­mil­i­ate those who have a dif­fer­ent point of view. Con­struc­tive cri­tique is viewed tan­ta­mount to trea­son and there is hell to pay for those who dare to ex­press opin­ions that con­tra­dict the po­si­tion of the lo­cal aris­to­crats. And while this Gov­ern­ment pro­motes it­self as ac­tive­ly lis­ten­ing to the voice of the peo­ple, it re­al­ly ap­pears to be turned on by the res­o­nance of its own nois­es. Sound bites are used to cam­ou­flage a lack of knowl­edge on mat­ters of na­tion­al im­por­tance and dra­mat­ic tones are re­lied up­on to car­ry for­ward the pre­tence. No one is the repos­i­to­ry of all knowl­edge and in any field there will be ar­eas in which in­di­vid­u­als have par­tic­u­lar train­ing. Any min­is­ter, there­fore, would recog­nise from the out­set that there is no shame in turn­ing to those who have proven track records for the req­ui­site ad­vice and guid­ance. There are al­le­ga­tions that some peo­ple who are be­ing paid hand­some­ly to pro­vide ex­per­tise do not pos­sess the req­ui­site knowl­edge or skills but be­cause of po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age are treat­ed with spe­cial favour. So again I ask rhetor­i­cal­ly, where is the new brand of pol­i­tics that the cit­i­zen­ry was promised and, more im­por­tant­ly, why are the cham­pi­ons for change re­main­ing silent in the face of such bla­tant trans­gres­sion? But in a cli­mate in which peo­ple fear vic­tim­i­sa­tion for mak­ing jus­ti­fi­able ad­verse com­ment against the es­tab­lish­ment, such prac­tices may con­tin­ue un­less a dose of good con­science is in­ject­ed in the veins of those cur­rent­ly in vi­o­la­tion.

Shoe on oth­er foot

What is ex­treme­ly trou­bling is that when some mem­bers of this cur­rent regime sat on op­po­si­tion bench­es, they were very vo­cal about the ac­tions of the for­mer gov­ern­ment that reeked of ar­ro­gance and high-hand­ed­ness. Much was said and quite right­ly so about the build­ing of the Dip-lo­mat­ic Cen­tre which was dubbed a palace and which in­ci­den­tal­ly has proven it­self fit for a beau­ti­ful and beloved queen. The op­por­tu­ni­ty was tak­en by in­di­vid­u­als to tear apart flawed leg­is­la­tion brought by the for­mer gov­ern­ment in an at­tempt to show that the lat­ter was ill-equipped to ful­fil its leg­isla­tive func­tion. But to­day, when the ta­bles have turned and the sides have switched, there are peo­ple who refuse to ac­cept that there ex­ist short­com­ings in some of the bills they have brought to and passed in the Par­lia­ment. The bold in­vi­ta­tion that the Op­po­si­tion should present a draft piece of leg­is­la­tion in or­der to ad­dress the mat­ter of the death penal­ty should there­fore come as no sur­prise be­cause this is a regime that ob­vi­ous­ly be­lieves that it is em­pow­ered to shift the par­a­digm com­plete­ly out of the ball park. When this ridicu­lous sug­ges­tion that the Op­po­si­tion take on the role of drafters was met with un­der­stand­able ob­jec­tion, there was an out­right de­nial that such an in­vi­ta­tion was ever made. And then, with his usu­al flair and pas­sion, the Go­liath of all Davids sug­gest­ed that there should be a na­tion­al de­bate on the mat­ter, with a se­nior le­gal of­fi­cer in one cor­ner and a non-le­gal though com­pe­tent in­di­vid­ual in the oth­er. How fair is that? Not sur­pris­ing­ly, there was no bit­ing of the bait and so the idea of the de­bate was even­tu­al­ly laid to rest.

Mon­i­tor­ing MPs

There is a me­dia house-dri­ven ini­tia­tive to go to each of the 41 con­stituen­cies in or­der to hear from the peo­ple their views on the per­for­mance of their re­spec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tives. A sur­vey was con­duct­ed in the Siparia con­stituen­cy rep­re­sent­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter and the re­views were mixed with some res­i­dents com­plain­ing that they have been ne­glect­ed. But in fair­ness to the mem­ber for Siparia, her role as the Prime Min­is­ter in a coali­tion gov­ern­ment is filled with chal­lenges, es­pe­cial­ly with the high ex­pec­ta­tion by the pub­lic for good gov­er­nance. The crime sit­u­a­tion has re­mained a ma­jor na­tion­al bug­bear and the econ­o­my, de­spite as­sur­ances to the con­trary, is not as buoy­ant as an­tic­i­pat­ed. The SoE that caught no big fish is be­ing ac­cept­ed as a fail­ure and per­haps the time is right for the ri­ot act to be read to all who are not per­form­ing at an op­ti­mum. If this Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues speed­i­ly along the high­way of ar­ro­gance, its fate will be no dif­fer­ent to those who paid the price at the polls.