SXMElections.com

Dear Editor,

Politicians are peeing on our legs and telling us that it is raining! For heaven's sake, when will all of this deception cease? When will these slick politicians come to the realization that they are cornered by the Dutch and the only way out of this sticky situation is to come clean with the public. Let us face it, there is no other way! But, more and more politicians are devising ways to cope with their tricks, because what had seem so real is now beginning to crumble - their weak spot is dangling as the band-aid is almost broken.

Plain and simple: the country cannot continue being run like the Wild Wild West anymore. To establish an Integrity Chamber without tackling corruption is to continue the operation of a dictator regime – a system where the population is oppressed and the cries of the people are forever falling on deaf ears. Democracy without transparency and accountability can only produce one thing: complete dictatorship, nothing less.

It is amazing to hear the Justice Minister speak so negatively about the Dutch, when he repeatedly boasted that he lived in Holland for thirty-two years prior to him becoming the Lieutenant Governor of Sint Maarten back in the mid-nineties. This is the same individual who went back to Holland to live before he was recruited once more to fill his current position. And, for sure, when he passes the baton to the next Justice Minister, he will go back to live with the Dutch, who he despised so much. So then, what is the missing link to this equation? This is how politicians are peeing on our legs and telling us that it is raining.

Time and patience will unravel everything, because the need to feed this machinery is increasing, but gradually it will be suffocated by the opposition. This test had already begun when we saw the level of politics rise to an unforeseen height on Wednesday and Friday respectively. MP Sarah Wescot-Williams came like a ton of bricks after she summarized the responses of her colleagues in the opposition benches and then stopped the Justice Minister and members of the coalition dead in their tracks.

On Friday, it was an incredible moment to see how politicians were swirled around in their own faeces and became imprisoned by their own greed and ego-centric behaviour. They were caught off guard so badly, that the only thing left was for them to abstain from the discussion. The chairman was baffled completely and even the MP, who usually monopolizes the meetings, had nothing to say.

I am sure that many of us can recall how confident the UP leader was, shortly after the election, when he vowed that his party would be a formidable opposition, but this aspiration has come back to haunt them, and very fast. Like Mohammed Ali, Wescot-Williams came with her gloves on, well-focused and ready to deliver the knock-out punch. Still charged and geared up to rumble, she challenged the chairman to proceed with the next round. Too perplexed to handle the dead silence that blanketed the House of Parliament, he knew it was the cue to close the meeting, so that they could recuperate from the rock-solid upper cut.

It is time that politicians quit peeing on our legs and telling us that it is raining. A government that has integrity empowers its people, because social equality is the heart of democracy. If politicians truly want justice for the people, then they must be ready to stamp out corruption and embrace transparency; otherwise, it will be blasphemy to even think of the word integrity.

Joslyn Morton