What al­ready promis­es to be a bruis­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion bat­tle took an alarm­ing turn on Fri­day night with the rev­e­la­tions and al­le­ga­tions made from the plat­form at the PNM’s post-Bud­get pub­lic meet­ing in Bel­mont.

If the con­fronta­tion­al tone set by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young is any­thing to go by, the at­tacks and counter-at­tacks will be com­ing fast and fu­ri­ous over the next six weeks. The stakes might be very high for the main po­lit­i­cal con­tenders in this bat­tle but for the elec­torate, there is a very se­ri­ous cause for con­cern.

The po­lit­i­cal cul­ture of T&T, par­tic­u­lar­ly in elec­tion sea­sons, is usu­al­ly char­ac­terised by bac­cha­nal and mau­vais langue. How­ev­er, what was un­leashed on Fri­day night wasn’t the usu­al cam­paign ban­ter but claims of politi­cians with crim­i­nal con­nec­tions and as­sas­si­na­tion plots.

This is not the first time that a po­lit­i­cal leader in this coun­try has claimed to be the tar­get of an as­sas­si­na­tion plot. For­tu­nate­ly, no such at­tacks have ever been at­tempt­ed.

The fact is, how­ev­er, that these are mat­ters that war­rant se­ri­ous po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and should not be hurled reck­less­ly from po­lit­i­cal plat­forms.

It is hard to fath­om any ben­e­fits to the na­tion from Fri­day night’s dis­clo­sures. If any­thing, they on­ly serve to per­pet­u­ate di­vi­sions, sus­pi­cions and in­sta­bil­i­ty among the pop­u­la­tion—some­thing T&T can ill af­ford.

How­ev­er, since Dr Row­ley and his ad­min­is­tra­tion have now opened that Pan­do­ra’s box, the UNC and all oth­er op­po­si­tion par­ties will not hes­i­tate to det­o­nate their own po­lit­i­cal bomb­shells at the ex­pense of more im­por­tant and rel­e­vant po­lit­i­cal con­ver­sa­tions about sta­bil­i­ty and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

It is there­fore es­sen­tial at this junc­ture, be­fore the po­lit­i­cal cam­paigns move in­to high gear, to re­mind all po­lit­i­cal par­ties and can­di­dates about the Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct to which most of them signed on a few elec­tion cy­cles ago. This ini­tia­tive, spear­head­ed by the T&T Cham­ber of Com­merce, needs to be re­in­forced and firm­ly ap­plied for the De­cem­ber 2 polls, as well as for next year’s gen­er­al elec­tion.

This coun­try has, thus far, had the ben­e­fit of free and fair elec­tions and po­lit­i­cal tran­si­tions have been, for the most part, con­duct­ed with­out in­ci­dent. Still, it would be fool­hardy to ig­nore the ran­cour that is be­com­ing a fea­ture of po­lit­i­cal en­gage­ments, not on­ly in the cut and thrust of po­lit­i­cal cam­paigns but al­so in the cham­bers of Par­lia­ment.

It is not too late to switch gears. The up­com­ing cam­paign, which ush­ers in long-promised re­form of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment sys­tem, presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty for more pro­duc­tive con­ver­sa­tions on how burgess­es can be bet­ter served. It would be a dis­ser­vice to vot­ers if it is over­shad­owed by un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed claims about crim­i­nal agen­das and po­lit­i­cal schemes.