Wednesday, December 28:

I WRITE ahead of the Day of Decision, when we exercise our democratic franchise and seek to determine our future. By the time this comes to hand, the results will be known. What difference will it make to life in this small nation state for the next five years?

The lofty ideas to turn us into a country of peace and prosperity, to which investors will flock, where plenty will abound, and people rush to establish their homes and bring up their children, is a worthy one but it won’t just happen so. No one can achieve Utopia simply because ballots have been counted and the newly elected empowered to lead the flock into the enlarged Gordon House.

Many predict that there will be no real surprises by the time you read this. It will be “on the other hand” or “on the other foot” and then there is the old schoolyard game — “Room for rent, apply within… When I run out, you run in.” If it isn’t A, then it is B. The assorted “bits and pieces” which make up C most likely will not be there when the final roll is called. We still haven’t caught on to the third party message. For the record, the Marcus Garvey People’s Party (MGPP) is fielding 10 candidates; NDM, eight; Independent, five; JAM, one. Despite the years of mistrust and discontent with A and B, it is one of them, not the third parties, which will be celebrating victory as you read this. Reality will replace colours. The losing team will be wondering and analysing how come, despite the strategies and the investment of time, effort and expenditure… The winners? Well, they should know by now what awaits them, but congrats all the same.

There will be no lack of expertise to tell them — and us — what the road ahead means. Whatever else is in short supply, opinion makers are not. Talk may be the only real growth industry in this nation. If it’s analysis you want, we have it from all sides. As for action — that’s something else. People are not afraid to talk up more and more about the direction in which they want the country to go.

Looking back on the weeks which led to this, there is much for review, many questions which can be asked and which may never be answered, but let’s ask them just the same.

1) What caused the inordinate haste with which this election was called? Why the speed to get it through before December 31? Was it simply to ensure that when the dawn of January 1, 2012, breaks it is “we, not Dem”, who will have the central place of honour to lead Jamaica into the 50th year of our Independence? Surely, it must be more than that, but when will we know the reality?

2) What is the cost of the biggest political advertising blitz in our history, with electioneering hard-sell crammed down our throats even on Christmas Day?

3) Whose money made possible, not only the advertising bounty, (TV lick dem finger), but the sideshows which ran from Morant Point to Negril and North Coast to South Coast? Will the full extent of that investment ever be known? What do the backers expect in return?

4) Four major establishments of commerce and industry have revealed how many millions each has contributed to the campaigns. This is a commendable breakthrough in transparency but more is needed. What about other donors, still unknown to us, who gave their largesse in kind — the food, the drink, the buses, the bus fares, etcetera? Will they too want payback?

5) Who is counting — how much medication could have been bought for the under-stocked public clinics and hospital pharmacies, if the millions thrown about in campaign funding had gone to charity? Or, if you prefer, how many schools, which are still in need of vital supplies, could have been helped by even a portion of the windfall? Will we know? Do we want to know?

BACK NOW to assessing the hopes for the promises made over the past weeks. There did not seem to be much talk of water, roads, health, education — all that stuff which the community needs and which used to be the focus of electioneering. Instead, the issues were more about the personality of the leaders, which one is more deserving of the title of Maximum Leader and/or having the best claim to Divine anointing. We seem to have been looking for a president of the not-yet republic instead of the old-time post of prime minister. Coming events casting shadows?

6) Win or lose, what price have we all paid? What guarantees will come for better times ahead? Will it be prepared for only thick or thin?

In whatever way, we had better be prepared to take a real look at the promises made, who made them and how will they be kept. As for the faithful who sang and danced and blew their trumpets in the streets, what are their expectations? What will be their assurance for tomorrow? Can the bitter words spoken on the platform be put aside for civility in Parliament?

Will we all be gifted with new and improved power, or will it be more of the same-old, same-old, the new wine poured into the old bottles, the broken pieces of which we are expected to sweep up? Will there be change — real change — in the way the now-expanded membership of the Gordon House Club members will treat each other? How many of our politicians, new and old, will be prepared to tell the people the harsh truth even if it is unpopular? We will expect the new and the different come Friday, December 30, in the Year of our Lord, Twenty-Eleven, with Twenty-Twelve staring us in the face. What will we see? Mek wi look, nuh!

We have been drowning in so many words, this could be time to listen for the silence in which the answers may be lurking.

And so — to our leaders and our people, Great Defender, grant us a sense of honesty, justice, truth and genuine love of neighbour. Give us tolerance and the humility to accept that none of us can go it alone…These and other blessings we ask, now more than ever. Amen and Amen.

Nuff respect for a fulfilling new year.