What would you do if you held an election and nobody came? In many of the polling stations set up for the Congress of the People's (COP) national executive election held last Sunday, that is almost precisely what happened.
Despite claims by the political leadership that the turnout (while still less than 2,000 people) was an increase over the last time this particular exercise was held, it still represents less than five per cent of what they consider the party's registered voters and that is a sad indictment indeed.
Forgetting that the leadership's numbers are being hotly contested by those in the party who would know, surely there must be a cut-off point below which an organisation ceases to be called a political party and starts to be referred to more as a regular lime, don't you agree?
On an almost daily basis I am being asked by the few remaining COP members-who appear still willing to be considered members-questions about why I have trained my guns so relentlessly on that organisation. Do I not understand the impact of my words on the party that I worked so hard for?
The answer to the second question is yes, and it hurts me to know that all that work that so many did-so much sacrifice, so much giving-has come down to this parody, this tragic joke. The answer to the first is simpler: because the party of hope has been reduced to the party of lies and deception and is now an upholder of all that is wrong in society for questionable, and even possibly racist, motives.
As one of its most vocal promoters and defenders, I consider myself to have an almost moral obligation under the dictates of new politics to expose us when we go wrong. Regardless of how I may come across though, I do not hate the COP; I hate what it has become.
Ever since the election of Prakash Ramadhar as political leader and his appointment of the Animal Farm cabal, the party has entered a decline so steep many had to eject out of sheer preservation of dignity and self respect.
Now what remains is no longer the party of hope but of nepotism and cronyism, and for the few able to stomach the stench there is now a straight line to contracts, state board appointments, senate seats or even national awards if you are willing to play the game. The politics of governance has been replaced by the politics of politics, and that is why I left because I was no longer able to answer convincingly to my own mind what it was all for.
No one can deny that the party made some stupendously stupid decisions since (and inclusive of) the Fyzabad Accord but at least the then leadership tried, if not to live up to the party's founding principles, then at least to justify any straying from a moral perspective and a country-first (hopefully) agenda. That has since changed.
One has to be deliberately avoiding the truth to not see that Prakash and Co are simply prostituting the party for the most benefit; integrity and morality be damned.
The reality and the facts both point to the COP as having failed its members and it legacy and I can think of no reason for the COP to justify remaining a part of the partnership after the still unexplained State of Emergency, the assault on the Constitution by the State's protective services against the peaceful Highway Re-route Movement strike camp, the brazen and openly threatening remarks to journalists and citizens expressing their freedom to speak by Cabinet ministers both within and without the Parliament, and the now infamous attack against decency, democracy and the rule of law that was the Section 34 fiasco.
I have to ask those same members who ask how I could leave so easily, based on this mountain of evidence, this tsunami of unprincipled abuses, what do you tell yourself to make it alright? How do you rationalise upholding criminal enterprise disguised as governance? Tell me with all honesty: how do you stay?
Phillip Edward Alexander