THE EDITOR, Sir: I find the story behind your front-page headline in The Sunday Gleaner worrying. It seems a number of PNP MPs – good ones among them – are facing serious challenges by others who want to replace them as candidates for the next general election.
Long before many of them were born, a candidate told potential voters that he was not into handouts, he was an honest man of education and training, and was prepared to put his skills to the service of the public to move the country forward. I think he lost his deposit.
More recently, I became excited by a young Heather Robinson. I thought she was prime minister material, but there were different kinds of persons the party seemed to consider more valuable.
I know Lloyd B. Smith to be a good and honest man with experience and competence. Did the party have to expose him to that ‘thing’ that took place on Sunday? If that was the best they could organise, D.K. Duncan must have been twiddling his thumbs during the 1970s. And nobody is going to believe that.
Recent elections have brought an exciting bunch of young, bright, educated persons to Parliament. Several of them seem to be facing challenges and opposition from other – mostly older – members of the party.
The main excuse given is that these youngsters won’t ‘work with the councillors’. Thank God for Jesus! Many of these persons belong to the old system that is largely responsible for us being where we are. They would be handed large sums of money, and varying amounts would go to family and girlfriends, ostensibly for projects that are rarely started or poorly done. But they were happy. Their pockets were full.
Now comes this cussed set, giving contracts to companies that complete them under budget and on time. Then they spend the rest of the money on foolishness like education. At this rate, these ‘stalwarts’ will die of hunger – for they know of no other way to make a living.
What surprises me is how, in a party riddled with rules and regulations, a prisoner to policies and procedures, with a very experienced general secretary, the future leaders of the party could be subjected to this prolonged, humiliating, public baptism of acid? And when did cultured Drumblair spawn this culture of coarseness and cannibalism?
Many of those ‘in politics’ today did not go in to serve. They went into politics to be serviced, and they see absolutely no relationship between politics and morality. Unfortunately, they form the
noisiest wing of each party. I refuse to believe that this is just a spontaneous reaction from the grass roots. There is method in this madness.
There are those who say this country is going nowhere. I disagree. I just don’t like where it is heading.
– GLENN TUCKER