While watch­ing the par­lia­men­tary de­bate last week­end, I had to ad­mit that Colm Im­bert and Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald both made ex­cel­lent pre­sen­ta­tions based on a good bal­ance of fact, lu­cid speech, emo­tive con­tent and con­fi­dence. In par­tic­u­lar I agree with Im­bert that the Gov­ern­ment has to lev­el with the na­tion re­gard­ing the re­al rea­sons for the state of emer­gency. It ap­pears that the Gov­ern­ment has not clued in­to the world­wide fact that dic­ta­tors are falling and democ­ra­cies are fail­ing for one main rea­son-they have not been telling the truth to their peo­ple.

Ask any rul­ing politi­cian in any west­ern democ­ra­cy to­day and he will tell you that re­cov­ery is on the hori­zon. Well I have news for them, it's not. We have two-four more years of painful sac­ri­fice be­fore those of us who find the right for­mu­la will be­gin to pros­per. The PNM is now a shad­ow of its for­mer self be­cause it got caught up in de­ceiv­ing the pop­u­la­tion in a mas­sive and sus­tained man­ner.

So, I re­spect­ful­ly urge the lead­er­ship of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship to lev­el with the peo­ple re­gard­ing the re­al rea­sons for the SoE and al­so give us a thor­ough ac­count­ing of our eco­nom­ic out­look in the up­com­ing bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

Gre­go­ry Wight

Diego Mar­tin