Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Mod­er­a­tor of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church Rev Elvis Elahie has called on re­li­gious bod­ies to high­light the "de­ceit and false­hoods" of politi­cians in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Elahie was speak­ing dur­ing the Christ­mas Day ser­vice at the Susamachar Pres­by­ter­ian Church in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day. In his ser­mon, Elahie said the Church and oth­er re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions need­ed to high­light the hypocrisy and de­ceit of politi­cians to safe­guard the pub­lic's in­ter­est. Com­par­ing politi­cians to King Herod who reigned dur­ing the birth of Je­sus Christ, Elahie said that like Herod, politi­cians were al­so full of de­ceit.

"Why do peo­ple, and by peo­ple I mean politi­cians, de­ceive the pub­lic? Why do these peo­ple mis­lead the pub­lic? It is im­por­tant for the church to ask this ques­tion," Elahie said. He said the Church need­ed to un­der­stand the be­hav­iour of some politi­cians in or­der to bring about trans­for­ma­tion. Elahie said, "Politi­cians are de­ceit­ful as they would do any­thing to gain pow­er. Their be­hav­iour has to do with per­son­al gain and glo­ry." Quot­ing sev­er­al politi­cians but with­hold­ing their names, Elahie gave ex­am­ples of his state­ments. He said in Ju­ly 2008, a cer­tain politi­cian took on the role of a priest and de­clared that he was a Chris­t­ian with a cap­i­tal C Elahie said the politi­cian in ques­tion, sug­gest­ed that he was su­pe­ri­or to oth­ers as far as re­li­gious be­long­ing was con­cerned. Elahie said the politi­cian has con­tin­ued to de­ny cit­i­zens equal­i­ty and free­dom from dis­crim­i­na­tion.

How­ev­er, he said the politi­cian has con­tin­ued to speak about re­li­gious har­mo­ny and eq­ui­ty whilst deny­ing cit­i­zens these same rights. He al­so said that in April 2009, an­oth­er politi­cian in a state­ment called on his sup­port­ers to pray to God to give them the pow­er to de­stroy their en­e­mies. "Yet this morn­ing in his Christ­mas mes­sage, that same politi­cian was wish­ing every­one peace, joy and love," Elahie said. Say­ing this was hypocrisy, the mod­er­a­tor said the politi­cian con­tin­ues to con­tra­dict him­self in his at­tempts to hood­wink the pop­u­la­tion. Elahie said in Oc­to­ber 2009, an­oth­er politi­cian de­clared that he was drunk with God. Elahie said that it was time for the church to play a more proac­tive role in high­light­ing the de­ceit of politi­cians. He said some mem­bers of the In­ter-re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion were re­luc­tant to ex­pose the politi­cians.