The parliamentary drama involving the motion of no confidence against the Prime Minister was a costly farce. I was disgusted to see the Prime Minister’s preening and his wildness on the platform. The UNC mounted what can only be called a weak defence. Their mobilising was ineffectual. The fact that Mr Manning could get away with insulting their characters, rather than addressing any of their concerns, shows an even more sorrowful situation within the Opposition party.

The most terrible sight on the front page was all the poor people ray-raying for their party leader. People who can’t get home when it rains and who have to fight for maxi-taxis at City Gate, who suffer in the hospitals, who have to do CEPEP work for their money, in whose neighbourhoods the most shots call, killing their family members. These are working people whose lives are hard and who surely want things to be better than they are.

If ordinary PNM people want to change their lives and country, what avenues do they have? Is this their party’s best? If ordinary UNC people want to bring about change, where can they be really heard? If rallies are only for shouting triumph and victory, how can ordinary people really make things better?

The story made news because it was really only about bacchanal, like Carnival costumes bought with my taxpayer’s dollars. Politicians are performers and, as political elites, they seek to amass power. Much of what is respected about them has to do with their charismatic hold over audiences, an almost religious belief in their calling, and their skill on the platform as ’men of words’’. We like that. Mr Manning therefore ’won’’ in the park and the press because he put on a good show.

However, the Opposition is correct. The country is in a mess.

The Government won because people like nonsense, even if life remains the same. We all lost because the PM was busy playing Caribbean P Diddy, the Government put party before country, the Opposition is not trusted, people chose race, class, patronage and show instead of securing a better tomorrow, and because the difficulties remain exactly the same today.

It seemed like both parties simply wasted our money, and no one really spoke for us all. Parliament did not even feature on any front page. Behind the gloating PM is our house of democracy, in a rotten state, at this time, in our nation.

Gabrielle Hosein

UWI, St Augustine