Just pri­or to the turn of the 20th Cen­tu­ry (1899), the then-Colo­nial Gov­ern­ment abol­ished the Port-of-Spain Bor­ough Coun­cil, ef­fec­tive­ly deny­ing the vote (lim­it­ed as it was then) to the peo­ple of the city to elect their rep­re­sen­ta­tives to gov­ern their af­fairs at the lo­cal lev­el.

Four years lat­er, the colo­nial es­tab­lish­ment sought to pass a bill that re­quired city dwellers to pay wa­ter rates through the planned in­stal­la­tion of wa­ter me­ters. That was per­ceived by the city’s denizens to be a dou­ble blow to their right to se­lect a lo­cal gov­ern­ment of their choice, com­pound­ed by a “wa­ter tax.” “No tax­a­tion with­out rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” was a state­ment of in­tent by the mass­es then.

This sit­u­a­tion was one of the caus­es of the Wa­ter Ri­ots of 1903 which led to the burn­ing down of the Red House by an­gry cit­i­zens thirst­ing not mere­ly for wa­ter, but the right to elect a City Coun­cil to run their af­fairs.

It’s a les­son to a 21st-cen­tu­ry gen­er­a­tion of cit­i­zens con­sid­ered to be far more “ad­vanced” than those of 122 years ago. The point to note is that we in this gen­er­a­tion must be con­scious of the in­her­i­tance of the right to elect a gov­ern­ment of our choice. This right was al­so not eas­i­ly and freely giv­en to our an­ces­tors; they had to fight to ex­er­cise what amount­ed to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.

But vic­to­ry in the con­test over vot­ing rights for cit­i­zens 21 years and over, with­out hav­ing to qual­i­fy through prop­er­ty and so­cial class priv­i­leges, did not come un­til 43 years af­ter that in­ter­ven­tion. That right was won on­ly af­ter many pitched bat­tles for “self-gov­ern­ment,” in­clud­ing the Labour Ri­ots of 1937.

To­day, with a poll card in hand at the polling sta­tion where you are reg­is­tered to vote and in pos­ses­sion of your na­tion­al ID card, cit­i­zens have an en­ti­tle­ment which they can­not cast to the wind. To al­low to­day to pass with­out ex­er­cis­ing that right is to make a mock­ery of our in­her­i­tance and to say to the mem­o­ry of our an­ces­tors, we care not for the lega­cy they be­queathed to us.

More­over, when cit­i­zen pass on the right to se­lect a gov­ern­ment, what they are in re­al­i­ty do­ing is set­ting the ground for that fran­chise to be eased out from un­der their con­trol by those with am­bi­tions to rule with­out them hav­ing a say.

The re­fusal by large num­bers of el­i­gi­ble elec­tors to ex­er­cise their right to choose a gov­ern­ment, is thus un­in­formed and un­car­ing of their sa­cred and so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to se­lect an ad­min­is­tra­tion that will make ma­jor de­ter­mi­na­tions on be­half of cit­i­zens in times as chal­leng­ing as the present.

Ap­pre­ci­at­ing the fact that vot­ing in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety is a very per­son­al mat­ter, es­pe­cial­ly mak­ing the choice of which in­di­vid­ual and par­ty to vote for, the over­ar­ch­ing and com­pelling right is to re­tain and ex­er­cise that choice.

Pop­u­la­tions which have let go of that right have had it tak­en away from them.

So to­day, go to the polls and cast your vote for the can­di­date and par­ty of your choice as an in­di­ca­tion that you have no in­ten­tion of let­ting go of the hard-won right of your an­ces­tors.