Be­cause nei­ther side has any re­al dif­fer­ence in eco­nom­ic poli­cies, it is dif­fi­cult to de­ter­mine what we are re­al­ly vot­ing for when we stain our fin­gers for a par­tic­u­lar par­ty. When in op­po­si­tion, the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment seem­ing­ly op­posed for op­pos­ing sake. Now that they are in pow­er their hands are hog-tied. But maybe we can dis­cern from the resid­ual ac­tions what they are like­ly to be brand­ed as. Now that rev­enue is a prob­lem, where do they get it from? Well it is clas­si­cal wis­dom that if one doesn't have the mon­ey one has to cut one's cloth ac­cord­ing­ly. Hence the cap of five per cent be­cause the pro­gres­sive tax called prop­er­ty tax and re­duc­tion in gas sub­si­dies are not op­tions. The for­mer, be­cause of the plat­form promis­es made and the lat­ter, be­cause of its in­fla­tion­ary ef­fects gen­er­al­ly and its re­gres­sive ef­fect on have-nots.

The prop­er­ty tax, in the main, would have forced those who could af­ford to con­tribute more to do so. The im­pact on the low­er in­come peo­ple with low­er val­ued or no hous­es would have been min­i­mal. But this is not what the cur­rent in­cum­bents told the na­tion pre-May 24, 2010, be­cause it was strict­ly a case of op­pos­ing for op­pos­ing sake; do what is nec­es­sary to win the pub­lic's favour. So even though they may try as best as pos­si­ble to call it by an­oth­er name, ie, re­vised land and build­ing tax­es, the peo­ple will see through it. Where do we go from here? At some point in time the peo­ple will have to be in­formed of the re­al­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. Now would be a much bet­ter time than clos­er to the next elec­tion. In the mean­time we will have to as­sume that the PP is our equiv­a­lent of Britain's Con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty, which seems to be at odds with the found­ing prin­ci­ples of the oth­er par­ty in the coali­tion, ie, it's now a par­ty for the haves who will con­tin­ue to ride the backs of the have-nots.

Rosan­na Matthews

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