GILLIAN LUCKY

For those of you who suf­fer from re­cur­rent kid­ney stones, sor­ry, this ar­ti­cle will be of no as­sis­tance in pre­vent­ing or man­ag­ing the or­deal, as the stones to which I re­fer are those po­lit­i­cal mill­stones that hang around the necks of lead­ers who refuse to get rid of them.

While there is lit­tle that can be done about kid­ney stones ex­cept to ease the pain as they make their painful pas­sage out of the sys­tem, po­lit­i­cal lead­ers worth their savvy should find lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty in get­ting rid of those who are de­lib­er­ate­ly and un­re­pen­tant­ly bring­ing the whole ship down.All their state­ments about putting the wel­fare of the State first have amount­ed to noth­ing, as our coun­try is slow­ly be­com­ing the laugh­ing stock of the Caribbean and a jaw-drop­per for the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

Where else in the world would scan­dals be ex­posed at break-neck speeds with the sub­jects of the sto­ries ap­par­ent­ly fac­ing no im­pend­ing po­lit­i­cal sanc­tion?And how com­fort­able do those who now hold high of­fice feel know­ing that they once marched peace­ful­ly with thou­sands through the streets and spoke pow­er­ful­ly about the need for re­call of elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, at a time which many may call heav­en, com­pared to the hell which they cur­rent­ly face?

Ap­par­ent­ly these in­di­vid­u­als, as the old peo­ple say, have no sense of shame and are pre­pared to take us over the precipice with blue lights flash­ing.

Time and twine

And while it is true that in pol­i­tics tim­ing is every­thing, the time has come for those who wish to be record­ed as great lead­ers to make the de­ci­sion to cut free from those who are bring­ing them down.The coun­try can­not con­tin­ue to suf­fer from a lack of good gov­er­nance be­cause of po­lit­i­cal ties that are bound with com­pro­mised threads.And those who pre­tend that all is well, when they are quite aware that the op­po­site is true, are con­tribut­ing to a po­lit­i­cal mi­rage that, when ex­posed, will leave all of us want­i­ng.

We know that time is longer than twine, but when the twine is bust­ed or un­rav­elled, we may be out of time to put things back in good or­der.So what do the mass­es do when those in charge refuse to lis­ten to the voice of rea­son?I am not an ad­vo­cate for act­ing out­side of the law and en­cour­age in­stead that peo­ple re­move their po­lit­i­cal blink­ers and as­sess the sit­u­a­tion for what it is, not for what they hoped or still hope it will be.

And soon, those who con­stant­ly talk about the new pol­i­tics, yet con­ve­nient­ly hide be­hind the shades of Cab­i­net and col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, may soon re­alise that their fol­low­ers have seen the light and moved to oth­er pas­tures.

Tough CEO

Suf­fi­cient time has passed for in­di­vid­u­als to prove their worth and be judged on their per­for­mance.The CEO of the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate can­not be hap­py with what she sees and must be pre­pared to prove that she is the iron la­dy that many hold her out to be.There is con­fi­dence that she is no po­lit­i­cal fool and is just wait­ing for the right time.Oth­ers, who are not as op­ti­mistic, be­lieve that she is blind­ed from the re­al­i­ty that con­fronts her–an ad­min­is­tra­tion that is los­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty with each pass­ing day.

Weak­ness in the face of grow­ing de­spair among the pop­u­la­tion will set the coun­try back for years. What is re­quired is a show of force by the leader in re­mov­ing those who are not fit to hold of­fice. Such a move will be in the best in­ter­est of the coun­try and will guar­an­tee an in­crease in the cur­rent sag­ging po­lit­i­cal rat­ings.

Move out

If peo­ple in sit­u­a­tions that could cause pub­lic em­bar­rass­ment to the par­ty are not pre­pared to re­lin­quish their po­si­tions for the greater good, then the leader must step in, and ask those in­di­vid­u­als to step aside un­til the mess is cleared.The West­min­ster form of gov­ern­ment is based on the high­est ethics, tra­di­tions and con­ven­tions which ap­par­ent­ly were thrown over­board be­fore reach­ing our shores.The re­sult is that peo­ple refuse to do the right thing be­cause there is no le­gal means of en­forc­ing ho­n­ourable con­duct.

This is a ma­jor de­fi­cien­cy in our sys­tem and jus­ti­fies the ur­gent need for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.In the in­ter­im, and even when our con­sti­tu­tion is fi­nal­ly amend­ed, there will al­ways be a need for strong lead­er­ship based on the tenets of in­tegri­ty, hon­esty, truth, fair­ness, ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy.A tough-talk­ing CEO must put her words in­to ac­tion, oth­er­wise she will be deemed a po­lit­i­cal cow­ard.

And while a coun­try may be pre­pared to for­give a leader who makes mis­takes (of course not re­peat­ed­ly), the peo­ple usu­al­ly find it dif­fi­cult to sup­port weak or hyp­o­crit­i­cal lead­ers.