The stark choices for us on Monday

THE EDITOR: On Monday, Local Government Elections Day, we the people of TT will be faced with making a great national decision.

We have the opportunity to either vote for a party which, when it was in government, benefitted itself and friends, or we can vote for a party that has always put all the people first, as is presently the case.

Therefore when faced with this choice, it is obvious that the People’s National Movement (PNM) is a breed apart from the United National Congress (UNC).

In these local government elections, the voters have an opportunity to choose between the UNC, which claims to be national in scope but which, during its five years in power, brought the country to the brink of the abyss of racial divisiveness, and the PNM, which has worked tirelessly for near 64 years, since its establishment in 1956, to make TT an oasis of racial and religious harmony and tolerance.

On Monday our citizens have the opportunity to choose a party that, even in the face of apparent prosperity during its time in office, demonstrated its contempt for our hard working public servants, inclusive of our police, soldiers and firemen, teachers and nurses.

Many of these public servants were left demoralised having been denied the benefits of economic expansion, while these benefits were frittered away and concentrated in the hands of a chosen few.

Or we have the option of choosing the PNM which during its many years in office has always tried to ensure all the people have an equal opportunity to share in the wealth of the country.

More recent examples are the First Citizens Bank shares through its initial public offering, the National Investment Fund, the forthcoming Housing Development Corporation housing bonds, which will soon be made available for public investment, and the sale of the Petrotrin refinery to the preferred bidder, Patriotic Energies and Technologies Company Ltd, which is owned by the Oilfields Workers Trade Union.

Moreover, we have the opportunity to choose between the UNC, which unashamedly attempted to hoodwink the population with the ill-fated Section 34 which sought to trample on the very foundations of our Constitution and democracy, and the PNM, which has always cherished our democratic institutions and continuously subscribes to the rule of law and good governance.

These are the stark choices confronting us as we head to cast our ballots on Monday.

RISHI LAKHAN

via e-mail