Editorial: Does the PNM deserve forgiveness?

On Monday citizens of Trinidad will vote in Local Government Elections for the first time since 2003. Tobago does not vote in these elections.

For four consecutive years former Prime Minister Patrick Manning used his Parliamentary majority - which included current PNM leader Keith Rowley - to deny people the right to choose their local representatives.

And at the same time he frustrated local authorities - especially those that were not PNM-controlled - by granting them financial crumbs to handle the mammoth task of serving their respective regions.

The Manning administration kept putting off the vote in order to hold consultations and put in place reforms to make the local government system better suited to the needs of the people. In effect they took away people's rights to vote while fiddling with the never-ending details of a reform package.

And now that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has done what she promised the PNM is telling people they must deny the governing People's Partnership the right to represent them at the local level.

At Woodford Square on Saturday the opposition party declared that "The PNM is alive and well. We are troubled but not distressed and we cannot be destroyed."

But the reality was a poor turnout for a rally that was meant to be a showpiece of the resurrected PNM under Rowley.

Party vice chairman, John Donaldson boasted that the fact that PNM was able to find "134 credible, intelligent people-oriented candidates in ten days, is a sign that we have already triumphed."

And campaign chair John Rahael said people don't show up for local elections, which is why there were so few supporters in Port of Spain. Perhaps he should have looked at what was happening at Skinner Park before speaking.

One commentator explained the poor turnout another way, saying now that the PNM has lost its ability to bully URP and CEPEP workers so it can no longer attract a crowd.

While some party jefes were boasting of the greatness of the PNM, Deputy political leader, Nafeesa Mohammed was using another approach, asking voters to forgive the party for all wrongs and give the PNM a second chance.

If I am right, what the lady is saying is that the PNM actually did "wrongs".

That, of course, is in conflict with her leader who has been boasting that PNM has nothing "to apologise for" when he himself had denounced the the Manning regime as the most corrupt ever.

The PNM cannot expect people to forgive the party for what happened when it continues to deny that it did nothing wrong. And the leader, not a deputy, must be the one to admit it.

And Rowley must go further. He must admit the abuse and waste, the corruption and the overall failures of his party, of which he was an active member, and then try to get a fresh start and ask for forgiveness.

The PNM doesn't deserve forgiveness for raping and plundering the treasury for its own benefit and the benefit of its friends and supporters; it must pay the price by answering before the courts of the land.

Then, purged of its corruption, it would have a feeble case to present to the public.

Until then, the people have only one choice on Monday.

And that is to elect candidates of the People's Partnership - a coalition that they elected to government two months ago on a platform of accountability, transparency and governance on behalf of the people.

In two months the Partnership under Kamla Persad-Bissessar has demonstrated that it intends to govern on behalf of the people and with zero tolerance for corruption. If anybody deserves a chance to get the people's vote on Monday it is the People's Partnership.