The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) cam­paign has been cen­tred on flaunt­ing their suc­cess­es, chief among them that of free ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion. Their lat­est press ad­ver­tise­ment talks about mov­ing from ABCs to PhD. I am a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the Gov­ern­ment's free ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion, hav­ing com­plet­ed stud­ies at the Col­lege of Sci­ence Tech­nol­o­gy and the Ap­plied Arts of Trinidad and To­ba­go (COSTAATT), and who is cur­rent­ly read­ing for a Bach­e­lor of Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion. I stand among thou­sands of oth­er cit­i­zens who have been con­ferred with an As­so­ciate, Bach­e­lor, PhD, diplo­ma or cer­tifi­cate. I have spe­cialised knowl­edge in an area of acad­e­mia with­out hav­ing to bear the fi­nan­cial bur­den.

It is be­cause of this spe­cialised knowl­edge, or what so­ci­ol­o­gists de­scribe as mankind mov­ing in­to a pe­ri­od of en­light­en­ment, where log­ic was used to solve prob­lems rather than re­li­gion or su­per­sti­tion, why I al­ways have main­tained the PNM's pol­i­cy of free ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion would back­fire on them. That time is now, in this elec­tion. Barack Oba­ma, in his book The Au­dac­i­ty of Hope, men­tioned that po­lit­i­cal par­ties choose their vot­ers and vot­ers do not choose their po­lit­i­cal par­ties. This holds true for the PNM as it al­ways has cho­sen the un­der-priv­i­leged in so­ci­ety, the less ed­u­cat­ed, the il­lit­er­ate and the poor as its pri­ma­ry vot­ers. An ex­am­i­na­tion of Laven­tille, Mal­oney, Mor­vant and the use of so­cial pro­grammes like Cepep and URP jus­ti­fies this. The par­ty has al­so pre­dom­i­nant­ly cho­sen Afro-Trinida­di­ans as the UNC has cho­sen In­do-Trinida­di­ans as its vot­ers, but my ar­gu­ment is not based on race but an en­light­ened ver­sus an un­en­light­ened elec­torate.

Free ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion has al­lowed uni­ver­si­ties, col­leges and in­sti­tu­tions of high­er learn­ing to churn out "en­light­ened" grad­u­ates in larg­er num­bers than ever be­fore. The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and COSTAATT have gone on record say­ing they both had record high en­rol­ment over the years. As a corol­lary to this there has been an ero­sion of un­e­d­u­cat­ed, il­lit­er­ate and un­en­light­ened vot­ers who are de­pen­dent on the PNM for their man­na. A sec­ond corol­lary is the fact that race-based, trib­al pol­i­tics have no in­flu­ence on the en­light­ened and the PNM has failed to change this strat­e­gy in tan­dem with a chang­ing en­light­ened elec­torate. The par­ty did not pre­dict this rev­o­lu­tion of en­light­en­ment, of in­tel­li­gence and of a new way of think­ing in our twin-is­land Re­pub­lic.

On the oth­er hand, it is stuck in a rut of trib­al, race-based pol­i­tics and of need­less pi­cong. It is an in­sult to our in­tel­li­gence to have Cul­ture Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc Don­ald talk about Roodal Mooni­lal jump­ing from Pan­day's pants in­to Kam­la's dress while ask­ing us in the same breath to be our rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Par­lia­ment. This brings me to the third corol­lary, where il­log­i­cal ar­gu­ments are put for­ward by the Gov­ern­ment to an en­light­ened elec­torate who are more ca­pa­ble now of sift­ing through pro­pa­gan­da, lies and un­truths.

For ex­am­ple;

�2 Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is too old to rep­re­sent Ari­ma, while Man­ning is young enough to run for Prime Min­is­ter;

�2 Kei­th Row­ley is fired for "wa­jang" be­hav­iour while the be­hav­iour of Mar­lene Mc Don­ald and Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo is en­dorsed on the plat­form;

�2 Bernard Camp­bell is de­port­ed back to the Unit­ed States while Calder Hart is whisked away in VIP treat­ment;

�2 The Prime Min­is­ter re­fus­es a tele­vised de­bate to dis­cuss is­sues to an en­light­ened elec­torate. De­bates are a hall­mark of de­vel­oped na­tions but the on­ly thing Man­ning copies from de­vel­oped na­tions are their sky­scrap­ers;

�2 Gov­ern­ment has no mon­ey to as­sist chil­dren in need of life-sav­ing surg­eries but, a $2 mil­lion flag is pur­chased;

�2 Union lead­ers joined the coali­tion to get their mon­ey out of Cli­co, but Karen Tesheira break­ing a de­posit just be­fore the fi­nan­cial de­ba­cle is mere co­in­ci­dence; and,

�2 The pub­lic den­i­gra­tion of Makan­dal Daa­ga while ku­dos is giv­en to Calder Hart.

With an in­crease in knowl­edge the cit­i­zens of this coun­try de­mand bet­ter gov­er­nance, some­thing Kam­la and the coali­tion need to keep in mind. We can as­sure them that should they be suc­cess­ful at the polls the cit­i­zen­ry will judge them by the same high stan­dards the PNM failed to de­liv­er.

Dami­an Williams

Diego Mar­tin