After all the votes are counted and the winner is declared as the new Member of Parliament for St John, there is one matter on which there can be no winners.
It is the treatment of the St John polyclinic by both political parties since 1990 when the idea of building the facility was thrown into the political melting pot in the year before the 1991 election.
Whether by accident or design, the polyclinic was bedevilled by politics from its inception, and it has remained to this day mired in the politics of this country in a way that suggests a certain partisanship and grandstanding of a kind that bodes not well for our future development.
It is unfortunate to say the least that the cabinet of this country having decided in the early 1990’s that there should be a polyclinic in St John, to find that in 2011, the proposed facility has hardly got out of the ground.
One way of looking at the matter is to suggest that the parliamentary representatives of the constituency should have looked after and improved the facilities in that parish by virtue of their exalted position as Prime Minister within the political system.
But the issue is wider than that, because we do not operate under a system of individual fiefdoms, but under a system of Cabinet Government in which the entire country is the responsibility of the Government of the day. Yet there have been instances where some Members of Parliament have only been able to achieve major improvements for their constituencies when their party is in power.
The late Sir Harold St John called for the development of Oistins for years, but was only able to get the project up and running when he formed part of the Cabinet of this country. Similarly St Peter languished for real improvement, which it only secured after Mr Owen Arthur its representative became the Prime Minister and used special development legislation to accelerate redevelopment of Speightstown in particular.
And now we have several charges and countercharges of neglect being bandied across the political divide in relation to the lack of improvement in St John. This should not be. Our political system should not become a pork barrel: one in which each individual member is forced to tack on to every piece of legislation, proposals designed to bring benefits to his specific constituency. That is a system that thrives in the individualistic personalized politics of some countries that operate other governmental systems.
One aspect of Owen Arthur’s politics of inclusion required a broader than partisan view in allocating the resources of the state without reference to political colour. This was a commendable approach, but could not long survive in the highly adversarial system that we operate, that confines the spoils of war to the victorious side.
But we feel that the national cake of this country must not be divided among only those areas that have returned members of the governing party, and all Governments must ensure the distribution of the national cake on the basis of the most clamant need within the financial parameters determined by the planning and priorities committee and the Cabinet.
We accept the reality that political considerations may well dictate and determine the urgency to be attached to different projects, but it must not become ingrained in our system that constituencies must wait for local development until a Government that reflects the political views of its representative is in power.
If there has been the perception that this has been the practice, then it must not become the reality; and if it has ever been the reality, then it must not continue. We are a small democracy in which we live cheek by jowl, in peace and harmony with our fellow citizens who may or may not share our political views; and nothing must be allowed to disrupt that harmony.