Whilst our country tries to successfully navigate the choppy economic waters ahead in the aftermath of what has been described by Dr Norbert Mason, the chairman of the Election and Boundaries Commission as "the most brutal, scathing, angry and vitriolic election I have seen in all my years in the Commission," it is important for our leaders on both sides of the political spectrum to not only condemn, but also take some of the responsibility for the spiteful, venomous, acerbic and malicious comments that continue to be spread on social media following the People's National Movement's victory in the 2015 general election. Only then will the healing process truly begin.
It cannot be denied that the People's Partnership victory in 2010 was a missed opportunity to unite the nation along the lines of colour, creed, class, race and gender, evidenced by the party's demographic wins across the country at that time.
Five years later, sadly it was not to be, as no sooner had the election bell rung, tribal politics and voting along racial lines once again reared its ugly head. Who can forget the accusations being thrown back and forth across the political divide with both the People's Partnership and the People's National Movement accusing each other of running racist campaigns? No one was left unscathed.
For three months politicians threw caution to the wind in pursuit of their own political agendas by relentlessly bombarding the citizenry with the most distasteful attacks against each other on the hustings, radio, television, newspaper and social media, the effects of which we are experiencing today.
It is no secret that our country has been plagued by racism since the days of Columbus, and this racism has penetrated our politics to the extent that today, in 2015, we continue to stand as a divided society. But how long can we continue along this path? And when will we realise a nation divided against itself cannot and will not stand. We must make today that day.
No longer must we allow or accept the racial and ethnic divisions of our society to stand as the single most deleterious factor militating against our struggle to become a nation in the true sense of the word.
On September 24, our nation celebrated Republic Day. A public holiday to mark the date the first Parliament convened under the new Republican Constitution 39 years ago. In other words, the date the Republican Constitution became the supreme law of the land where power was now held by the people and their elected representatives.
A closer look at our nation's history will show that at that time in 1976 when the late Dr Eric Williams, former prime minister changed the Constitution and called it a Republican Constitution, the form of the Constitution changed but the substance remained. And so today, what we have is the same Westminster first-past-the-post system that was thrust upon our demographically divided country so many years ago.
So where do we go from here? What do we do to eradicate this stranglehold upon our society? The answer has to be to change the political system itself. That is to say, to engage in true constitutional reform that will change the set of rules which set up the system, the structure and procedures by which our country is governed. After all, it is the fundamental law that effectively controls the exercise of power. Creating a Parliament that is representative, responsible and accountable is the only way we can begin the process of helping to restore people's faith in politics and politicians.