A right to our MP’s head

By Randy Batson
| Fri, October 26, 2012 - 12:00 AM

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THE NATION must be commended for staging its recent Talkback forum. Any avenue where the public can interact directly with their political representatives should be supported unequivocally.

The Prime Minister had his reasons for choosing not to attend (I believe he did ventilate these in another forum). And that is fine.

However, it may be contended that in a mature democracy not only must the elected see it as proper to interface with the electorate in regular fora, but equally as pertinent to their job description to make themselves available to the public to give an account of their stewardship.

Such gatherings would hopefully allow for greater transparency, accountability and integrity. Since Members of Parliament are the employees of the people of Barbados, it may be considered the height of arrogance for any sitting member, especially those within Cabinet, to believe he or she is above scrutiny in how they discharge their responsibilities.

One of the desirable consequences of having a highly literate and educated populace is the larger numbers of informed voters, the kind that would spurn emotion and sentimentality and “yardfowlism” in favour of critical and reasoned thinking. This would be a populace that would look past fancy words, dirty laundry, eloquent well crafted speeches, shouting under the street lights and well timed construction projects to examine the issues and ask probing questions of those in whom the governance of the country is vested.

We owe it to ourselves to vote, and to do so armed with the knowledge of where our candidates truly stand on the issues and what their proposed policies really are.