While, as an act of humility, one ought not to blow one's trumpet, this writer is heartened to note, and indeed takes credit, that the criteria and procedures employed for selection of our new President appear to have fit snuggly into, and have been in accordance with, those which he had outlined, inter alia, "as the way to go," in the letter which was published in the media on January 22, 2013.
In this letter the following were given as the yardsticks required:
1. The citizen selected ought to be of unquestioned and impeccable integrity such that his role as an exemplar must be beyond all doubt;
2. He/she must be capable of exercising independence and indeed be expected to, tender advice, when required;
3. The government, notwithstanding its built-in majority in the electoral college, should seek out a citizen who could be viewed as a person of national stature and, as far as practicable as a "conscientious candidate" who has not been in the hurly-burly of national divisive politics;
4. He or she ought to be of sound academic training and be possessed of such experience as would enable him or her to exercise sound and balanced political judgement when the situation so demands;
5. He or she should be viewed by the citizenry as a father/mother figure as demonstrated by his/her past pursuits, and his/her unstinting commitment to the national welfare.
There are, I am sure, citizens who fit this bill.
Needless to say, I am of the view that Anthony T A Carmona fits the bill completely. I am especially heartened that, fortunately and unusually, he has found himself to be a consensus candidate–a situation which ought to allow him "to advise and to warn" even in the absence of any new enabling legislation.
Errol Cupid,
Trincity, Tacarigua