How The Rest Was Won

HOW THE WEST WAS WON


Dear Editor

I am alarmed and frightened to hear that the UPP took us into the last general elections knowing that the voter list was padded and flawed. Someone from the UPP should clarify this issue and say what options, if any, were opened to the UPP party armed with this terrible information.

The manager of one of the UPP candidates said on Observer Radio that they tried in vain to address the electoral commission on the matter of some 900 registered voters who they could not account for. And so, they decided to “take a chance”. Take a chance with an entire country on the wings of a prayer?

Is the UPP a religious organization? The overemphasis of God seems to be a cover for its crass ineptitude. I now understand why one of the commissioners (Ms. Agnes Blaize) from the electoral office said on Serpent’s show some weeks before the elections that God sees everything. Not even the Vatican could or would prepare for an election like this.

I am now asking if the some members of the electoral commission had let out to the UPP candidates that the list was padded. Is this why an independent inquiry has not been mounted into the abject failure of the electoral commission?

Believing in God is essential. But the good Lord help those who help themselves. Depending on God to win a general election because of the abject blunder of your party machinery, and then praising God for the victory, is sacrilegious and deserving of a hot, pointed seat in the deep recesses of hell.

So what is the way forward against this terrible world economic condition we now face? Let’s build as many churches as possible and praise the Lord. Amen.

(The following was not in the original letter)

But the service is not over. After church, I recall the strong, almost umbilical affinity some members of the ALP have for their party, even though they know that the ALP top brass have been accused of corruption in public office. I am hastily turning around on my Damascus road to avoid this epiphany:

When ALP politicians are accused of corruption, they themselves may be forced to hold a public inquiry, or the UPP can mount one, regardless of how long it takes to get to the truth. When the UPP government and party give away the governing of the country on the wings of a prayer (like they almost did), and console us by saying it was God’s will, what sort of public inquiry do we hold? A public inquiry into God?

Dr. Lester CN Simon