He­len Dray­ton

Whether the Hon Stu­art Young, SC, serves as Prime Min­is­ter be­yond a mere cou­ple of months de­pends on win­ning the elec­torate’s con­fi­dence that he would lead the coun­try in­to a pro­duc­tive new chap­ter. The qual­i­ty of the coun­try’s lead­er­ship im­pacts in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive well-be­ing. It is the cru­cial el­e­ment of gov­er­nance that shapes cul­ture, so­ci­eties, and economies.

What is the sub­stance of PM Stu­art Young’s new chap­ter? He has a few weeks be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion to de­fine that and con­vince un­de­cid­ed vot­ers that re­turn­ing the PNM to of­fice un­der his lead­er­ship is in the coun­try’s best in­ter­ests. Com­mit­ted par­ty vot­ers, about 30 per cent of the elec­torate, have al­ready de­cid­ed.

The elec­torate must be­lieve that if elect­ed, he will re­duce the high in­ci­dence of crime. As it has con­veyed, the Gov­ern­ment be­lieves that it is re­spon­si­ble on­ly for pol­i­cy and fa­cil­i­tat­ing re­sources, not po­lice op­er­a­tions and that we’re all to blame—which vexed us.

By its pos­ture, it failed to ap­pre­ci­ate the sym­bi­ot­ic na­ture of pol­i­cy, strat­e­gy, and op­er­a­tions; when it makes poli­cies, it must en­sure the ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion of sys­tems and process­es to sup­port such poli­cies, which means ef­fi­cient op­er­a­tional over­sight and ac­count­abil­i­ty. A sig­nif­i­cant is­sue is the ridicu­lous pro­ce­dure for re­cruit­ing the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

How will the PM hold his min­is­ters and gov­ern­ment agen­cies’ heads ac­count­able for per­for­mance? He should ar­tic­u­late that in the prin­ci­ples of the new chap­ter.

Will the new chap­ter mean re­spect for chil­dren and teach­ers by main­tain­ing hy­gien­ic, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly schools con­ducive to teach­ing and learn­ing? How will his gov­ern­ment deal with com­mu­ni­ties like Sea Lots, where about 40 per cent of pri­ma­ry school-age chil­dren are not in school?

It’s heart­en­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter has sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to re­view and re­design the ed­u­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum. Suc­cess­ful ed­u­ca­tion re­form will ben­e­fit all chil­dren and be the most sig­nif­i­cant con­trib­u­tor to­ward a just, peace­ful and pro­duc­tive so­ci­ety, re­shap­ing cul­ture and prepar­ing stu­dents for cit­i­zen­ship, work, and coun­try com­pet­i­tive­ness. It should help them to be­come crit­i­cal thinkers and to nav­i­gate life. How will the PM deal with un­em­ploy­able young peo­ple be­tween 16 and 45?

His pro­posed Min­istry of Ef­fi­cien­cy has, overnight, be­come a pri­or­i­ty, giv­en US Gov­ern­ment tar­iff pol­i­cy. The busi­ness sec­tor must de­vise strate­gies to re­duce fac­tor costs to re­main com­pet­i­tive. Pub­lic Ser­vice ef­fi­cien­cy is nec­es­sary to fa­cil­i­tate eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, sus­tain eco­nom­ic growth, cre­ate new em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, and nur­ture a clean and healthy nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment.

Yet, oth­er politi­cians promise to in­crease ex­pen­di­ture with­out any in­for­ma­tion on rev­enue sources to sup­port the largesse. In­creas­es in busi­ness costs, such as un­sus­tain­able wage in­creas­es, will like­ly re­sult in job loss­es and in­creased prices.

For vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens, so­cial as­sis­tance for food, hous­ing, ed­u­ca­tion, pen­sions, med­i­cines, and oth­er es­sen­tials are vir­tu­al­ly un­touch­able dur­ing elec­tions. The Gov­ern­ment is the ar­chi­tect of the present so­cial ben­e­fits in­fra­struc­ture, and PM Young wouldn’t in­ter­fere with that and shoot the PNM in the foot. The like­li­hood is en­hance­ments like the re­tired pub­lic ser­vants’ tax-free pen­sions. That should have min­i­mal im­pact on the Trea­sury as about 75 per cent of those pen­sions are un­der the tax thresh­old of $90,000 per an­num.

How will the PM ad­dress the jus­tice sys­tem so that var­i­ous in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing the po­lice ser­vice, laws, and process­es, op­er­ate co­he­sive­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly, de­liv­er­ing time­ly jus­tice, pro­tect­ing in­di­vid­ual rights, and pun­ish­ing of­fend­ers and crim­i­nals?

It will take a de­ci­sive and trans­for­ma­tion­al leader to change Gov­ern­ment cul­ture, har­ness the coun­try’s tal­ents and re­sources and forge a pro­duc­tive fu­ture.

What does PM Young bring to the ta­ble? He has tremen­dous ex­per­tise in the law, which hope­ful­ly he will use to re­duce the bil­lions in lit­i­ga­tion spend­ing. He has had a decade in pol­i­tics and gov­ern­ment, serv­ing in se­nior and piv­otal min­is­te­r­i­al po­si­tions in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and en­er­gy, as at­tor­ney gen­er­al and le­gal af­fairs, act­ing as Prime Min­is­ter, and co-chair of the Ne­go­ti­at­ing Team for en­er­gy. His ex­pe­ri­ence as chair of the Cab­i­net’s Fi­nance & Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es Com­mit­tee and as a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Hu­man Re­source Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, and sev­er­al Par­lia­men­tary Com­mit­tees would have bol­stered his un­der­stand­ing of gov­er­nance is­sues.

He demon­strat­ed ex­cel­lent lead­er­ship skills in in­ter­na­tion­al ne­go­ti­a­tions and re­la­tions. His ex­pe­ri­ence as an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor and par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive for ten years is a note­wor­thy as­set. His in­tel­li­gence, en­er­gy and tenac­i­ty should cre­ate a pro­gres­sive new chap­ter.

The ul­ti­mate test is show­ing good judge­ment on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form con­sis­tent with the prin­ci­ples of a new chap­ter and win­ning the elec­torate’s con­fi­dence that he is the best choice to lead the coun­try.