Elec­tion cam­paigns are not beau­ty pa­rades. Elec­tors do not of­ten cast their vote as a thank you or to sup­port the bet­ter out­fit­ted. The pre­vail­ing view is that cit­i­zens vote to re­ject un­wel­come poli­cies or be­cause they are up­set over the in­cum­bents’ per­for­mance. It is of­ten emo­tion—not sober, ra­tio­nal cal­cu­la­tion—that serves as the main guid­ing fac­tor. The cam­paign speech­es need some mod­icum of sense and prag­ma­tism, even if politi­cians al­so play on emo­tion­al fac­tors.

In­cum­ben­cy may bring ac­cess to state re­sources, which the Op­po­si­tion is un­like­ly to have. But it al­so car­ries the bur­den of de­fend­ing a track record. Op­po­si­tion par­ties can promise any­thing. The in­cum­bents must de­fend their record and give cred­i­ble rea­sons to show the pos­si­bil­i­ty of im­prove­ment.

The na­tion faces eco­nom­ic, so­cial and in­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges. The spe­cif­ic is­sues af­fect­ing each area are in­ter­re­lat­ed, and they re­quire a co­her­ent, cal­i­brat­ed and co­or­di­nat­ed suite of poli­cies to en­able the coun­try to achieve progress. Every po­lit­i­cal par­ty and every con­tes­tant is ex­pect­ed to demon­strate com­pe­ten­cies to ad­dress the chal­lenges of of­fice.

The econ­o­my has been in a de­pres­sion for the last ten years. Gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­tures have ex­ceed­ed rev­enue, re­sult­ing in deficits fi­nanced by bor­row­ing in do­mes­tic and for­eign mar­kets. Even with some mea­sure of fis­cal dis­ci­pline, the IMF’s medi­um-term pro­jec­tion is for con­tin­u­ing fis­cal deficits. This is due to de­clin­ing nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion, which af­fects plant pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and the amount of LNG and petro­chem­i­cals pro­duced.

The non-en­er­gy sec­tor has not been strong enough to com­pen­sate for the de­cline, and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in­to new ex­port ar­eas or im­port sub­sti­tu­tion has been slow. Falling ex­port vol­umes mean low­er for­eign ex­change earn­ings and for­eign ex­change scarci­ty, mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult to in­vest in new ar­eas.

How will the pri­vate sec­tor be en­cour­aged to seize new op­por­tu­ni­ties and new ex­port mar­kets? How should the coun­try re­spond to the chang­ing world trade en­vi­ron­ment?

The so­cial prob­lems are di­verse but im­pact every area. The crime scourge seems un­re­solv­able with or with­out a State of Emer­gency. The emer­gency pow­ers have on­ly re­duced the crime num­bers tem­porar­i­ly. Re­al­is­ti­cal­ly, once the State of Emer­gency is lift­ed, we can ex­pect that the sta­tis­tics will re­vert to the trend line. What should be done to achieve bet­ter re­sults? How do we im­prove the per­for­mance of the TTPS and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al dis­ci­pline? What in­ter­ven­tions are re­quired to im­prove its ad­min­is­tra­tive struc­tures, which are vi­tal to en­hanc­ing per­for­mance at every lev­el?

How can the jus­tice sys­tem be im­proved to en­sure that pris­on­ers are not sub­ject to un­con­scionable de­lays, de­prived of their lib­er­ty and their day in court for years? How do we im­prove the op­er­a­tions of the pub­lic ser­vice and make it a more fit-for-pur­pose or­gan­i­sa­tion where ef­fi­cien­cy is praised for its own sake?

These are the mat­ters that our politi­cians should be ad­dress­ing on the plat­form as they pre­pare them­selves and the coun­try for their time in of­fice. What are the pri­or­i­ties and the plans for the coun­try? In­stead, the elec­torate is bom­bard­ed with sim­plis­tic sto­ries of what penury and dis­as­ter will be the out­come if the oth­er side wins of­fice. What are the rev­enue sources to fund the ex­trav­a­gant promis­es made by each po­lit­i­cal par­ty?

The coun­try needs co­gent, con­cise, re­spon­si­ble ar­gu­ments that show that the can­di­dates ap­pre­ci­ate the mam­moth task be­fore them. To date, no par­ty has demon­strat­ed that they un­der­stand the chal­lenge of hold­ing of­fice. Is our on­ly choice the least bad al­ter­na­tive?