In an elec­tion cam­paign sea­son, par­ti­san­ship is of high val­ue. Politi­cians don’t re­al­ly want ob­jec­tiv­i­ty, de­tach­ment, facts or the truth. And they don’t want opin­ion if it dis­agrees with theirs. Par­ty pol­i­tics is par­ti­san every­where. Po­lit­i­cal par­ties just want to win. This is un­der­stand­able. But cit­i­zens need to make sense of things and weigh their op­tions.

In an elec­tion con­test, po­lit­i­cal par­ties want pow­er and com­pete for it be­cause they need pow­er to gov­ern. In gov­ern­ment, a par­ty has the pow­er to make pol­i­cy, de­ci­sions, laws and to make things hap­pen.

What the peo­ple ask for is choice. Die-hard loy­al­ists are aligned. Their no­tion of choice is not who to vote for, but whether to vote and how much en­thu­si­asm and ef­fort to give their par­ty. Oth­er peo­ple want a broad­er choice though, and a rea­son to choose. When they vote to give one par­ty pow­er, they ex­pect the par­ty to im­prove their lives and com­mu­ni­ty con­di­tions, to raise the qual­i­ty of life gen­er­al­ly, to en­hance eco­nom­ic con­di­tions and to de­vel­op phys­i­cal and so­cial in­fra­struc­ture in the coun­try.

That is the link be­tween the elec­toral process and sys­tem and rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment, and be­tween pol­i­tics and gov­er­nance. When a po­lit­i­cal par­ty wins, gov­ern­ment is as­sured; but ef­fec­tive gov­ern­ment and good gov­er­nance are not guar­an­teed. So, cit­i­zens vote for a par­ty to win, but ef­fec­tive gov­ern­ment and good gov­er­nance are what they hope for.

In a coun­try such as T&T, on­ly about 40-45 per cent are deeply aligned. The re­main­der re­flects a range of dis­po­si­tions. So, they want a choice and a ba­sis for mak­ing a choice. And they are open to in­flu­ence. What is com­mu­ni­cat­ed to reach them is es­sen­tial and the mes­sage re­ceived is al­ways more than just what is said.

What would ef­fec­tive gov­ern­ment mean in our sit­u­a­tion? A gov­ern­ment ca­pa­ble of deal­ing with gangs, guns, drugs and crime and restor­ing pub­lic safe­ty and con­fi­dence. Be­cause with­out that, very lit­tle else is pos­si­ble. This is the num­ber one prob­lem that re­quires a com­pre­hen­sive so­lu­tion. That so­lu­tion re­quires a leader or lead­er­ship team, co­he­sive and aligned to shared law en­force­ment ob­jec­tives based on in­tel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance, ev­i­dence, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al com­pe­tence and jus­tice. In the end, peo­ple want a rea­son­able guar­an­tee of per­son­al and pub­lic safe­ty.

The fi­nan­cial chal­lenge T&T is fac­ing al­so needs to be man­aged. Our rev­enue is no longer enough to fund ex­pen­di­tures at cur­rent lev­els, and it is dif­fi­cult to earn more in the im­me­di­ate short term. So, ex­pen­di­tures have to be cut. The state sub­si­dies, state en­ter­pris­es that can’t pay their way. There is a sig­nif­i­cant so­cial wel­fare com­po­nent in an­nu­al ex­pen­di­tures, and 93 per cent of our bud­get is aligned to re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­tures.

Gov­ern­ment is just too big.

The forex re­serve is be­ing re­duced month­ly, our bal­ance of trade is off, be­cause we are not ex­port­ing enough and im­port­ing a lot, in­clud­ing most of our food. We have sig­nif­i­cant debt and there are forex debt ser­vic­ing re­quire­ments. How are we go­ing to in­crease the quan­tum of forex earn­ings, and, in the mean­time, how are we go­ing to al­lo­cate and dis­trib­ute fair­ly to sus­tain the econ­o­my in the best way un­til we make up the short­fall in forex rev­enue? How do we re­think, re­spond and nav­i­gate in the con­text of an on­go­ing re­vi­sion of the glob­al trade regime and re­mak­ing of the hemi­spher­ic and glob­al or­der?

And our econ­o­my - How are we go­ing to se­cure non-en­er­gy in­vest­ment fo­cused on ex­ports and good jobs? How can we boost our tourism in quick time? How are we go­ing to cre­ate a cli­mate in which lo­cal en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­no­va­tion can flour­ish? How can we turn our un­em­ployed, un­der­em­ployed and mi­grat­ing ter­tiary grad­u­ates in­to the prime as­sets they re­al­ly are? How do we achieve greater self-suf­fi­cien­cy? This is our most for­mi­da­ble long-term chal­lenge.

There might be oth­er prob­lems but these are the three big ones: se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty; eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery through in­vest­ment and di­ver­si­fied ex­ports and, fi­nan­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty, as we man­age rev­enue and ex­pen­di­ture with re­straint, com­pas­sion, more strate­gic ac­tions and imag­i­na­tion.

In ten years, the Gov­ern­ment has solved none of these prob­lems. What so­lu­tions does the Gov­ern­ment ad­vance now?

The Op­po­si­tion has had ten years to fig­ure it out. What are their cred­i­ble so­lu­tions for these ma­jor chal­lenges?

Oth­er par­ties have not ar­tic­u­lat­ed a clear, cred­i­ble plan for these ei­ther.

And the truth is that we need a work­able ac­tion plan for our coun­try. Is that too much for a cit­i­zen to ask for?

A man­i­festo is not es­sen­tial; just cred­i­ble, work­able so­lu­tions for these key ur­gent chal­lenges will be plen­ty.

May God bless our na­tion.