Posts

Showing posts from October, 2005

Voting Is Just The First Step

In small Caribbean islands like ours many citizens are frustrated at the lack of ability to effect any meaningful change in the way they are governed. Voting does not seem to help because once politicians actually get in government; it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. I posit that this is so because people don't see their vote as the first step in the process of demanding accountability and good governance but instead as the end. Between elections the real power remains unused in the PTAs, village councils, professional associations, unions, churches and the like. Politicians always want to be present for photo-ops and they like to hear themselves speak, at graduations and for ground breaking of this and that. There are many times when the politicians need our audience more than we need to hear them. People must start booing Ministers who come to their area or groups without having made good on the promises of the elections sans explanation. They must get up and wal