Thursday, January 27, 2011

Political drama unfolds - the only certainty is uncertainty

Yesterday, Prime Minister Danny Philip had come out fighting in the media, releasing 'secrets' of certain MP's, mainly Opposition members.

It was clearly a desperate move by the PM to try and save the CNRA boat from sinking to the bottom of the Iron Bottom Sound.

The implicated MP's told the local media that they will defend themselves when the time is right and that they will revel more secrets of Members of the government side. Since then we have heard nothing from them in the local media.

Personally, there is little doubt in my mind that the allegations by PM are true. Some of these revelations were already known to some public officers, only that they were never made public through the mainstream media.

Thus, it would be very difficult for some of them, like the Deputy Leader of Opposition to rebut the claims made by the PM.

Instead, what might see transpire as we move along would be a tit-for-tat exchange of political arsenal by both sides just to to try and save face and possibly convince Solomon Islanders that the other party had committed more wrong than the other.

In my view, both parties are throwing stones at each other from inside glass houses.

Despite the PM's desperate move, with the petition now submitted to the Government House and signed by 25 MPs, it has become apparent that the CNRA boat is living its last moments on the surface of water. It is very likely that few days from now, the boat will submerge into water and another will be floated as the new vessel to lead Solomon Islanders.

The question now is, how good would that new vessel be?

The real answer to that will only be known when a new government is formed. Before that we can only speculate.

However, if history is something to go by, we can almost be certain that about a third or more of the new government will be made up of crew members of the current vessel and thus at the end of the day only a few of the new group will stand out as good or better performers.

For the rest, the status quo will remain the same- unproductive, slippery and sneaky, corrupt, dubious, self-serving and so forth.

Thats the reality of politics in Solomon Islands; that most of our political leaders are leaders only to and for themselves, their relatives and their cronies- not for the rest of Solomon Islands and the nation as a whole.

Whenever the moment dawns on them to stand up and make a difference by being respectable, honest and reliable, they turn their back to Solomon Islanders and seek ends that only them benefit from.

That is the problem we have; a leadership crisis. What we need are leaders with vision and heart for the people. Leaders that can lead to serve others and make sacrifices for the greater good.

Off course, no person or any political leader for that matter will be perfect. But aspiring for perfection is what our political leaders should focus on.

On the basis of the above considerations, the current Opposition group must be careful and make sure that dubious characters that are now within their own group and with those that have eloped to their side from the government must not be included in any new political grouping that forms the government.

They should try and put together like-minded people that have a similar vision and level commitment for the rebuilding of Solomon Islands. This as we know, would be a very difficult thing to do in the case of Solomon Islands politics. But for sure, it is not impossible. It can be done.

Otherwise, even with the formation of a new government, we will still be sailing through chartered waters- same old route as in the past.

It would be very interesting to see how the current Opposition group lines up its port folios. I suspect that despite their strong bond, the candidacy for PM will be highly contested.

For now, we can only sit and watch as the drama unfolds. The least we can do is sit, pray and hope for the better. 

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