Searchlight Logo
special_image

    • News
      • Front Page
      • News
      • Breaking News
      • Press Release
      • Features
      • Special Features
      • From the Courts
      • Sports
      • Regional / World
    • Opinions
      • Editorial
      • Our Readers’ Opinions
      • Bassy – Love Vine
      • Dr. Fraser- Point of View
      • R. Rose – Eye of the Needle
      • On Target
      • Dr Jozelle Miller
      • The World Around Us
      • Random Thoughts
    • Advice
      • Kitchen Corner
      • What’s on Fleek this week
      • Health Wise
      • Physician’s Weekly
      • Business Buzz
      • Hey Rosie!
      • Prime the pump
    • ePaper
    • Obituaries
      • In Memoriam / Acknowledgement
      • Tribute
    • Contact Us
      • Advertise With Us
      • Letters To The Editor
      • General Contact Information
      • Contact our Webmaster
    • About Us
      • Privacy Policy
      • Interactive Media Ltd
      • St. Vincent & the Grenadines
    • Subscribe
    • News
      • Front Page
      • News
      • Breaking News
      • Press Release
      • Features
      • Special Features
      • From the Courts
      • Sports
      • Regional / World
    • Opinions
      • Editorial
      • Our Readers’ Opinions
      • Bassy – Love Vine
      • Dr. Fraser- Point of View
      • R. Rose – Eye of the Needle
      • On Target
      • Dr Jozelle Miller
      • The World Around Us
      • Random Thoughts
    • Advice
      • Kitchen Corner
      • What’s on Fleek this week
      • Health Wise
      • Physician’s Weekly
      • Business Buzz
      • Hey Rosie!
      • Prime the pump
    • ePaper
    • Obituaries
      • In Memoriam / Acknowledgement
      • Tribute
    • Contact Us
      • Advertise With Us
      • Letters To The Editor
      • General Contact Information
      • Contact our Webmaster
    • About Us
      • Privacy Policy
      • Interactive Media Ltd
      • St. Vincent & the Grenadines
    • Subscribe
What will 2025 hold  for Our Country
Dr. Fraser- Point of View
November 29, 2024

What will 2025 hold for Our Country

In another couple days we will enter the final month of the year. November was one hell of a month with regard to the weather. It is usually the month we can expect most rain but this year it was special with virtually continuous rain accompanied most of the time by thunder and lightning, the effects possibly of climate change. Our people are behaving equally strange. This is the time of year when we tend to focus on football, but just imagine we are hosting the Bangladesh Cricket team to a series involving tests, T20s and One Days. We are hosting the three T20s in December, interestingly too, very near to Christmas. In December we normally expect drier weather, but we better don’t bet on that. In any event, it is the time when we get into the Christmas spirit and revive the traditions of that season.

Many will see it as a period when they could explore their entrepreneurial ambitions. Barrels come from relatives and friends abroad with goods to be sold. This is becoming more difficult with the restrictions on road side vending, although prospective seasonal vendors find creative ways to do their trade, getting around the imposed restrictions. The season brings its trials and tribulations as most persons try to make the best of it.

As we move into the new year 2025, the country will be transformed into a veritable political battleground. The Silly Season, which I have already declared, will be in full focus. It marks really the end of the five-year period in which the Westminster system allows the last party elected to office to govern before once more facing the voting public to have its mandate renewed or taken away from them. It also gives the Prime Minister or Leader of the country the authority to call elections whenever he or she feels. Only that individual really knows the date on which the elections will be held, unlike what obtains in the American system. Once the date is declared it gives the electorate its only real exercise of power, except that many of the voting public do not fully appreciate this. This is one of the trappings of what is in reality a deformed ‘democratic’ system that has left behind the values and norms that had shaped and given meaning to it.

The basic principle is that adults over 18 years of age have the right to select a government of their choice. It is a sort of contract which in another five years will be renewed or cancelled. It is however not as simple and easy as it appears. All things come into play. Those who were once the subjects of the voting populace have over the years become unapologetically their masters. And the longer they retain hold of the government, the worse it gets because they begin to believe that they are really exercising ownership. It can reach the stage where they give the impression that the voting public and the people generally live on a plantation that they own.

The Silly Season arises when those who exercise the power they have assumed, plot to retain it. The goal then changes. Those who were elected to provide governance and facilitate the development of the people give priority to projects that would facilitate the growth of the political power that they grabbed. South African analyst, Pali Lehohla, describes the ‘Silly Season’ as toxic, and of being deprived of the proper ingredients for sound policy making.

The exercise leading to the holding of elections on the surface looks logically simple. Theoretically it should involve the incumbent reporting to the people of the nation on what they had done over the past five years or, for that matter, the number of years the party has been in power.

Those in Opposition or those seeking office are expected to critique that report and show that their policies, their manifesto offer a better alternative. The question that has to be asked is, to what extent did their policies benefit the people. Very often we get photographs of structures as though those structures could talk and tell the story of how their existence will benefit the people of the country.

Lurking in the background are issues of poverty, unemployment and crime, to single out a few, which had not been tackled.

What the populace is left with are promises of better things to come. You might be able to get away with this for a term or two, but once you get beyond that then there is no argument justifying the retention of their contract. The right to vote every five years means little in the scheme of things. A well informed and critical public is desperately needed. There are of course so many other things at stake.

The Vincentian public is left to decide if it will re-elect a government that has been in office for over 24 years but find the country they love, virtually at the bottom in so many areas when compared to their neighbours. Sober thinking and serious reflection are needed. Are some of us still about selling our votes and living hand to mouth for the next five years? This is a decision that many will have to make.

 

  • FacebookComments
  • ALSO IN THE NEWS
    12 left homeless in mid-day fire at Richland Park
    Front Page
    12 left homeless in mid-day fire at Richland Park
    Webmaster 
    September 5, 2025
    A fire that destroyed a multi-family complex in Richland Park over the weekend has left at least 12 people homeless, including a 23-year-old mother of...
    PM responds to US military strike on small boat off Venezuela
    Front Page
    PM responds to US military strike on small boat off Venezuela
    Webmaster 
    September 5, 2025
    Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves has responded to reports by the United States administration that its military had carried out the bombing of a boa...
    Building material disappear from the Mary Hutchinson Primary School
    Front Page
    Building material disappear from the Mary Hutchinson Primary School
    Webmaster 
    September 5, 2025
    Police investigators on Union Island are said to be looking into the “disappearance” of building materials that were sent to the Southern Grenadine Is...
    What’s new at Fitz Hughes Government School?
    Front Page
    What’s new at Fitz Hughes Government School?
    Webmaster 
    September 5, 2025
    by Grace Francis After sharing a small space for over a year, children and teachers at the Fitz Hughes Early Childhood Centre went into brand new prem...
    MRI-6 donates over $70,000 for school meals for vulnerable students
    Front Page
    MRI-6 donates over $70,000 for school meals for vulnerable students
    Webmaster 
    September 5, 2025
    Several secondary schools and special needs institutions across St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) have received $5,000 donations towards meals for s...
    Minister of Information Technology  emphasises the importance of Cybersecurity
    News
    Minister of Information Technology emphasises the importance of Cybersecurity
    Webmaster 
    September 5, 2025
    Robust cybersecurity must be at the heart of the digital transformation that is currently taking place in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) says Min...
    News
    Minister of Information Technology  emphasises the importance of Cybersecurity
    News
    Minister of Information Technology emphasises the importance of Cybersecurity
    Webmaster 
    September 5, 2025
    Robust cybersecurity must be at the heart of the digital transformation that is currently taking place in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) says Min...
    Entities team up to boost disaster communication capacity
    News
    Entities team up to boost disaster communication capacity
    Webmaster 
    September 5, 2025
    The Climate Change Resilience Network (CCRN) in collaboration with the Youlou Radio Movement (YRM) recently embarked on a disaster preparedness initia...
    Ministry of Health to get more dialysis machines
    News
    Ministry of Health to get more dialysis machines
    Webmaster 
    September 5, 2025
    The Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment, is to obtain three more Heamodialysis machines as part of the revolution in the healthcare secto...
    PM Gonsalves heads delegation to Ethiopia
    News
    PM Gonsalves heads delegation to Ethiopia
    Webmaster 
    September 5, 2025
    Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, is leading a delegation to the East African country of Ethiopia; the delegation left the state on Wednesday, Septe...
    New Port to be opened on October 24- PM Gonsalves
    News
    New Port to be opened on October 24- PM Gonsalves
    Webmaster 
    September 5, 2025
    The modern port in Kingstown is expected to be handed over to the government just before this country celebrates its 46th anniversary of political ind...

    E-EDITION
    ePaper
    google_play
    app_store
    Subscribe Now
    • Interactive Media Ltd. • P.O. Box 152 • Kingstown • St. Vincent and the Grenadines • Phone: 784-456-1558 © Copyright Interactive Media Ltd.. All rights reserved.
    We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok