Promises! Promises!

Much as we would wish to believe APNU when they say that if they win the elections they would stop using taxpayers money to (as a section of the media put it) “reward the corrupt class of parasitic political cronies through the arbitrary and ministerial use of ministerial discretion” we prefer to wait and see rather than take them at their word.

First of all they have to win the elections! Promises are nothing without power. And if and when that happens we need to wait a while to see whether this particular promise might not be a reincarnation of the PPP’s “lean, mean and clean” proclamation and whether all that will not be forgotten if and when the public treasury falls into their public hands.

Now let’s not get hot under the collar, Brigadier Granger! Hear us out. You know as well as we do that elections promises are just what they are, elections promises! And you know too that every government breeds or adopts its own band of “parasitic political cronies,” people who give support at election time… like businessmen who make contributions to the campaign fund in the expectation of reciprocity for what they regard as investments. There are these unwritten but clearly understood arrangements that favour certain groups… whether you call them “parasitic political cronies” or “cherished lambs.”

Now we know that APNU has spent much of the past few months hustling a US dollar here and a pound sterling there in an effort to get within reasonable striking distance of the PPP’s massive war chest; so that we will have to take it with more than a pinch of salt if APNU seeks to suggest that if it comes out on top there will not have to be some sort of payback time. OK, we have hope and pray that which party or group of parties form the next government, big businessmen will  pay all their taxes, Ministers will not become tycoons and the scale of bribes and kickbacks will be reduced.  But after all,  Brigadier, politics and economics very often works out to be pretty much the same thing and APNU really cannot expect without providing any evidence whatsoever that it will completely alter this nation’s corrupt political landscape in one fell swoop. Come again, APNU!

No hard feelings intended here APNU but we are not about to fall for that lean, mean and clean three-card trick all over again. We have nothing against elections-time promises, per se; but let’s just be careful about what we say and at any rate we still have to wait until after November 28 to know whether you will be in a position to make good on those promises, anyway.

What we do know is that whoever comes out on top, the financiers and the party high rollers – in APNU’s case, several parties – will come crawling out of the woodwork  while some of us will continue to suck salt.