Restless region, shifting votes

The 2025 Caribbean electoral season has revealed a restless political temperament across the region, along with important questions about whether our systems truly serve democratic goals.

It has also highlighted just how diverse our electoral frameworks are - ranging from first-past-the-post contests to various forms of proportional representation, all within a shared culture of fierce but rules-bound competition.

These differences invite a wider regional discussion on governance. Suriname, for example, recently abandoned its “district” system of proportional representation in favour of a single, national constituency – in my view, removing a pathway through which localised issues may reach the national stage.

I acknowledge there are Surinamese experts prepared to quite logically challenge this view. I was schooled by resident experts on its inherent weaknesses. But I still hold there is value in it, as evidenced in the possibilities offered in Guyana.

Guyana operates a hybrid form of PR that ensures regional representation: of its 65 parliamentary seats, 25 regional seats are allocated using the Hare quota system.

Both cases underline the need to discuss, at the regional level, how our electoral designs shape real representation. In T&T, this conversation arises mainly when people lose elections and suspect there is a way they could have stood a better chance.

Equally important, though, is the issue of voter turnout. This year, so far, participation levels have ranged from the mid-70s to below 40 percent, with several observers pointing to rising “voter apathy”, especially among young people.

While imperfect registration lists complicate the calculations, the broader concern remains: too many citizens are staying away from the polls.

Here’s a quick scan of how the year unfolded in both full and associate Caribbean Community (Caricom) member states:

Turks and Caicos (Feb 7): Constitutional changes were in place for the vote, but the outcome was unchanged. The Progressive National Party (PNP) held power with nearly 74% turnout.

Anguilla (Feb 26): Cora Richardson-Hodge’s Anguilla United Front (AUF) ousted the incumbent Anguilla Progressive Movement (APM), with turnout at 69%.

Belize (Mar 12): John Briceño’s People’s United Party (PUP) returned comfortably with 26 seats in the 36-member House, while a divided United Democratic Party (UDP) won only five between its two factions. Turnout was close to 65%.

Trinidad & Tobago (Apr 28): Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s United National Congress (UNC), and the Tobago People’s Party (TPP), overturned a narrow People’s National Movement (PNM) majority. Turnout stood just below 54%, and the new House is now split 26 (UNC), 13 (PNM), and 2 (TPP).

Suriname (May 25): Jennifer Geerlings-Simons’ National Democratic Party (NDP) built coalition support for a new government. More than 69% of voters participated.

Guyana (Sep 1): In a historic shift, the People’s National Congress (PNC), anchor of the APNU coalition, slipped to third place behind the new We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) – the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) winning a second consecutive term under President Irfaan Ali. Turnout however fell to about 52%, down from over 70% in 2020.

Jamaica (Sep 3): The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) retained office but lost ground, sliding from its 49-14 advantage in 2020 to 38-35. The People’s National Party (PNP), under Mark Golding, surged, but turnout dropped to under 40% - the lowest in the region this year.

Still ahead are elections in St Vincent and the Grenadines, likely before year’s end. Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party (ULP), holding nine of 15 seats, will seek a sixth straight victory against Godwin Friday’s New Democratic Party (NDP).

Saint Lucia, where the ruling Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP) trounced the United Workers Party (UWP) 13-2 in 2021, is also gearing up for its next poll. Don’t be surprised if the year does not end without this contest.

Taken together, these recalibrations reflect a region in motion - sometimes favouring incumbents, sometimes rejecting them, but always revealing the dynamism of Caribbean politics. However, the troubling variations in voter turnout suggest that large segments of our populations feel disconnected from the process. There are also questions to be answered concerning the representative systems at play.

For this reason, it might be time to revisit the now-defunct Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians (ACCP). Such a bi-partisan forum could engage dialogue on electoral systems, representation, and ways to re-engage citizens who currently feel left behind.

For guidance, witness the work of the multipartite OECS Assembly which met in St Vincent in June for the seventh time since it first convened in 2012.

The Caribbean will never adopt a single electoral model, but we share the challenge of strengthening democracy while ensuring that the widest possible range of voices is heard. This year’s restless voting patterns should remind us that democracy cannot be taken for granted - and that reform must be part of a collective conversation.

A Desk for Daniela

Last Sunday marked the last official day of a UNHCR (The UN Refugee Agency) physical, administrative presence in T&T.

It was not unexpected that a focused, financial squeeze on multilateral, global inter-governmental agencies would have followed the kind of international talk and action we have been witnessing over the years, but now culminating in active, official policy.

So, yes, “funding constraints” have become a recurring issue within the UN system and its long arms in key developmental areas that countries, such as ours in the Caribbean, have benefited from across the full range of technical, financial, and policy support.

In many countries, there has been openly expressed regret and accompanying tragic outcomes. In other instances, governments have tacitly celebrated the gradual retreat of ubiquitous, institutional reminders of principles based on global understanding of the numerous challenges the planet faces.

These include guidance and technical assistance in delivery of health, education, cultural, and human rights aspirations … among others. In this instance, migrant policy has taken a direct hit despite universally accepted values and recommended practices guided by convention, international law, and in some instances domestic legislation.

This is occurring at a time when, perhaps more than ever before in modern history, there need to be orderly administrative regimes and environments committed to minimising harm. There is a degree of recklessness about human welfare and life most of us have never encountered before.

It has not mattered to too many what international humanitarian and migrant law dictate. In some cases, there is a deliberate flouting of accepted principles rooted in well-respected human rights principles.

The absence of national concern in T&T by the collective legal profession, politicians of all shades, colleague journalists, human rights activists, and civil society organisations has been sadly stark, with only a few notable exceptions.

All of this to say that yet another school year is being launched in less than a week from now and close to 1,500 children born here – and another 4,500 or so of other statuses - will be deliberately denied what we boastfully describe as our system of universal primary education.

The figures have been skewed by official and informal guesstimates based entirely on degrees of knowledge, empathy, and understanding. Politicians and commentators have provided guidance along a spectrum of 100,000 to 200,000 to “plenty” to “too many.”

I am no longer exercising patience on this subject. There are well-informed people who will tell you that had we been serious, the required human and infrastructural and administrative resources would have been available to make schooling of migrant children a non-issue at this time.

Today, it is being met by ole talk related to wider “migration policy” based on a “minifesto” promise on “the integration of Venezuelan migrants.”

Yet, this is a subject that has, to some extent, defied political complexion when it comes to public expression of diagnosis and treatment. Pay attention to the partisan trolls and the hate speech being produced … without censure from either their own principals or people who should know better.

The best news reporting guidelines discourage employment of the term “illegal immigrants”, for example, over the tendency of language to dehumanise or degrade the value of people. It’s there in use of the word “Venee”, comparison with animals and the inanimate, and loose association with dishonourable professions.

There is also a real danger, at this time of threatened regime change 11 kilometres from here, that the hate mongers will be incapable of making a distinction between Venezuela, the country, and objectified Venezuelans.

It has happened to us in the past. Read Sam Selvon and George Lamming regarding migrant Caribbean people in the UK and make an effort to get Claude McKay and Paule Marshall on the US experience.

For the umpteenth time last May I reminded people that of the 37,906 refugees and asylum-seekers registered by the UNHCR in T&T, more than 86% are from Venezuela - the other 14% from over 38 additional countries.

These “pests” and “invasive species”, as described in current, unbridled hate speech, include schooled and tragically unschooled children entitled to “birthright citizenship” (jus soli). “Daniela” – now 7 and being “home schooled” by a non-native English-speaking mother and a father too busy making ends meet from manicuring yards – is among the numbers.

I remind you. We have not come to this overnight. This shameful slur on our humanity.  Daniela awaits her desk at school. Some of us are standing in the way.

 

Where are ‘we’?

The 56th Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) Annual General Assembly rolled seamlessly into the XV edition of CARIFESTA in Barbados last week. The WhatsApp group created for CBU delegates morphed into a prolific platform for CARIFESTA advisories and impressions.

Some of us stayed on to capture early glimpses of the regional spectacle, while others caught the action online.

This sounds like no big thing, right? Yes, because it happens all the time. Those who have been following the work of the Association of Caribbean MediaWorkers (ACM) – now headquartered in Guyana - and Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC) – based in Jamaica – should be aware that for most media folks the Caribbean paradigm flows naturally from the work we do.

As an autonomous project of the MIC, the Caribbean Investigative Journalism Network (CIJN) has been on the CBU winners’ roll over the past few years. Our teams span the region and work together as a single unit.

CIJN awardees at CBU XV

This is not just about showing off – which is okay by me – but making a point about the expression of Caribbean regional cohesion through means outside of the formal institutional arrangements expressed through Caricom and others.

So, after posting some photos from the CARIFESTA parade of nations on social media, a friend and colleague asked me: “Wey we?” – meaning she had not seen any shots representative of her country’s contingent. “We are in all the shots,” was my cryptic response … in the hope she’d know what I meant by that. A laughing emoji followed.

However, sceptically invoking the question of “we” - after so many years of collective effort, triumphs, and shortcomings - does not automatically represent failure, even as there is promotion of a notion of collective will and responsibility.

I was, within hours of that exchange, to argue during an online discussion on human rights, constitutions and elections in Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago that formulations of integration are often devoid of a sense of cultural sensitivity. This includes interpretations and versions of the philosophical menus on offer.

When I spoke of fish broth, cowheel soup, pelau and cook up – Surinamese public intellectual/human rights activist Sharda Ganga reminded us that we are still able to identify the discrete ingredients of cook up (and all the other dishes, I quietly mused).

“Where in all this are WE?”, in this context, is thus not an entirely unreasonable question – the three countries under review (Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname) being the broader subject, but CBU and CARIFESTA and Caricom and ACM and MIC included by implication.

We know the old “melting pot” and “tossed salad” conundrums well, but so often forget the pelau and cook up concoctions. Yes, I am negotiating a most circuitous route to today’s question about engagement and disengagement of a collective future.

In conversation with Julius, and later Franka and Peter, I bored them yet again with questions of “self-esteem” and “self-confidence” in engaging the present and fashioning the future. This space has endlessly cited CLR James and Lloyd Best, but there are several others who framed the same questions in different ways.

Casual, uninformed dismissal of the communal, regional approach to individual problem-solving is thus both hurtful and harmful. If “we” have not now realised that we have nowhere to go alone as small, vulnerable, but resilient and creative nations, we have learnt nothing.

Even so, our formal and informal arrangements all contemplate disagreement and even injurious battle. It’s what happens with family. We have been here before in 1972 with recognition of Cuba, and the Grenadian tragedy of 1983. There were sharp divisions regarding Aristide’s ouster in 2004, and there are Caricom countries with diplomatic relations with China, and a few others with Taiwan.

Some of us even stop speaking with each other from time to time. When PetroCaribe was launched in 2005, Trinidad and Tobago (for obvious reasons) and Barbados were unenthusiastic, with the others arguing that far-reaching engagement was the result of enlightened self-interest.

Some in Trinidad and Tobago and in the region meanwhile saw the accord with Venezuela as a betrayal of sorts, especially since there were implications for Caricom arrangements built into the PetroCaribe agreement.

Even then, there were numerous bilaterals and multilaterals that remained in place involving Venezuela and Caribbean countries. For instance, T&T’s relations with this troubled neighbour are not restricted to oil and gas collaborations, and Venezuela’s persistent Essequibo claims had not disappeared when Guyana signed the PDVSA Energy Cooperation Agreement in 2014.

So, we argue at times even to the point of defamatory and degrading assertion. Today, you see, is me, the next day is you. But at the end of it all this is really about all ah “we” – whether we like it or not.

Patriotism, Politics, and Noise

The cancellation of this year’s Independence Day military parade has understandably generated substantial scepticism, outrage, and a wide spectrum of other postures and emotions. Even as I have myself never developed an appreciation for the event, I fully understand why people might feel aggrieved at its absence.

All of us can identify family, friends, neighbours, and colleagues who never miss the spectacle either as enthusiastic witnesses, social networking and entrepreneurial opportunities, or as a forum for exhilaration derived from a sense of national belonging and even pride.

These are valid concerns that should not be dismissed or trivialised. This should not be an occasion for affected partisan alarum or an occasion to score political points. There are strong, genuine feelings on the subject.

In all this I do not, as some have, deploy use of the word “patriotism” which is so often interchangeably, and openly, represented in degrees of what can only be described as coercive fascist sentiment.

It is unlikely that any ruling administration in T&T will openly acknowledge what thinkers like VS Naipaul, Lloyd Best, and others described as the absurd, self-delusional role of militaristic displays in post-colonial societies like ours. Popular opinion tends to intervene in ways that can be politically damaging, you see.

Even so, it does not help that cohesive official messaging on a rationale for elimination of this year’s parade and associated activities, has been so casually, even recklessly, ignored. This newspaper addressed some relevant questions in its Monday editorial, so nothing more from me on that here, except that this business of military protection of national sovereignty has been described as something of a nonsense in our context.

That said, today’s missive is meant to draw attention to one other aspect of the move - the elimination of noisy pyrotechnics – with which I absolutely agree and hope it becomes a permanent feature of both public and private celebrations at all times of the year.

Successive governments have been hypocritical in condemnation of such practices citing violation of anti-noise pollution principles and law, while openly facilitating or ignoring activities associated with it. Not very long ago, there were no such anti-noise reservations when it came to election canvassing, and the subject did not find recurring space on the campaign trails of any of the contestants.

But, as has been argued repeatedly here and by several interest groups, there are numerous pre-existing conditions designed to eliminate or reduce the effects of harmful noise from a wide variety of sources. In none of these is a state of public emergency cited as remedial.

If fact, a promise of new laws or new umbrella legislation also does not appear to highly commend or recognise a variety of other legislative and regulatory measures – some of them longstanding and have occupied prominent public relations space in the past across the political spectrum.

The question has always been about effective enforcement and application of determined action in the face of official duplicity on the subject. How many times before have we heard the “zero-tolerance” talk? Some of us have learned not to hold our breath when it comes to this, even as parameters for tolerance are subject to cultural relativism under the law/s and some traditions – good and bad.

Have a read of Rule 7 of the Noise Pollution Control Rules of the Environmental Management Act. There are exceptions (under specified conditions including the use of sound amplification) related to religious practices, sporting events, and even the use of “motor-operated garden equipment.” Yes, the wacker guys have a bligh of sorts between the hours of 7.00 a.m. and 7.00 p.m.

So, a promise of fresh legislation is unimpressive on its own. We already have the Noise Pollution Rules, the Explosives Act Chap 16:02, the Summary Offences Act Chap 11:02, and the Public Holiday and Festival Act Chap 19:05. Some activists on the subject can also routinely rattle off other provisions at law, even when not referencing more intangible features of respect and care.

So, it’s almost all there already with clear explicit and implicit roles for the police, the Environmental Management Authority, local government bodies, the courts, civil society organisations, individual civic-minded citizens, and, importantly, politicians with fixed moral anchors.

Let’s see how this one goes.

What pan means

So, it’s Steelpan Month 2025. It’s worth our while to remember this in these rather dark times during which self-confidence is frequently challenged.

Pan, you see, is among the great hopes of T&T in ways not easily recognisable to the recently introduced, uninitiated, or wholly ignorant. It fully deserves its place on our coat of arms, if not in all our hearts.

Scan this newspaper space over the years and note such emphasis in defiance of the lure of seasonal compulsion and expressions of surprise by occasional panyard tourists who argue about Panorama rules and results.

“When the oil is gone,” I asked the late Keith Smith as we walked along Independence Square sometime in 1985/86, “what else do we have to keep us going?” His response was an unintelligible grunt.

Some years later, I was seated on a plane next to a T&T government advisor on energy matters. I asked him the same question I had asked Keith. “For as long as the planet is viable, there will always be oil and gas,” he responded. Full stop.

I have told this story numerous times before partly to dismiss a notion of sudden revelation, novelty, or my own sudden realisation of pan as an important component of our developmental path.

The other motivation has always been to stress the instrument’s value beyond the beauty of music delivered – however much this is subject to matters of taste. Yes, you are fully entitled not to like pan music. But it’s more than the music.

Even so, if we wished to dwell on the point of the music alone, we could also speak about the industry and genius that reside behind the quality of music produced by our national instrument.

My son, Mikhail, has directed a soon to be launched video documentary on the life of musician Jit Samaroo as part of the Iconography series by Pomegranate Studios. View it and have this point indelibly engraved in your mind.

If you have been paying attention, you would have also noted that there is no shortage of commentary and debate on this aspect of the steelpan phenomenon – the music. But it’s still not enough.

Last week, I came across a video produced by social media content creator, Tisha Greenidge (@tisha.t.tish on Instagram), featuring young pannists of Arima Angel Harps and Diatonic Pan Academy responding to questions about what pan means to them.

Yes, this appears to have been meant mainly for the converted who will have little trouble understanding, but if you are curious about the subject of pan’s socio-cultural value, make sure you have a look.

Kim Johnson’s Illustrated History of Pan explores the question differently in its chapter on Tomorrow’s People, Von Martin’s Voices of Pan Pioneers muses retroactively, Patrick Roberts’ Iron Love sees pan in art via Desperadoes, and numerous others have explored the subject at different levels. But young Greenidge’s young pannists get straight to the point of what pan means or can mean to people.

Spending time among young participants of the Birdsong Vacation Music Camp last week  helped stress the point to me that the habit of saying we should use pan to keep young people occupied and out of trouble is to completely misunderstand its place in the world of music and culture.

Birdsong Academy music director, Derrianne Dyett, made the point that music education is valuable in areas outside of its worth in producing creative content. We have witnessed this in the way children from a variety of backgrounds interacted positively with each other at the camp, and the keenness with which they engaged otherwise tedious tasks.

The attributes displayed are not all unique to the steelpan. For example, last week’s concert by the Youth Philharmonic was also full of love.

I have been following young people and their music for years now and seen it repeatedly. Music has a way of doing that. But the steelpan which emerged post-emancipation as an act and enduring symbol of defiance against gigantic odds reaches even further.

So, yes, I am one of numerous advocates for monetising and realising somewhat latent economic value in pan via unique high-quality expertise, intellectual property, and our status as the Global Mecca of Pan. But there are other qualities not always recognised.

Ms Greenidge asked: “What is the first word that comes to mind when you think about pan?” Hear them: “vibe”, “courage”, “unity”, “expression”, “journey”, “dance”, “connection.”

Pause for a moment and think about anything else we do here that comes close to matching this. It’s Steelpan Month. No better time to focus on this question.

 

The tripartite illusion

In small economies such as ours in the Caribbean, there are bound to be anomalies in the formal arrangements designed to achieve industrial peace, and ensuing wealth generation, involving workers, employers, and the state.

In many instances, therefore, tripartite arrangements reflect multiple points of duality. The state remains a major direct and indirect employer in most states. Workers’ representatives are declining in status especially with a growing majority of workers employed in the informal, non-unionised sector, and through new investments that include no such compulsion.

There is also routinised reliance by private sector actors on the state as a client and/or financial benefactor in one form or another.

This does not render a notion of “tripartism” an overly tidy prospect. The globalised template does not sit easily with our reality. This subject came to mind because of two experiences overshadowed by recent political shenanigans here.

The first thought was inspired by the participation of Labour Minister Leroy Baptiste at the 113^th Session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva in June. The second came during the brief visit of ILO Director-General Gilbert F. Houngbo to POS in April.

Baptiste is not, of course, the first politician emerging from active duty in trade unionism to occupy such a post and to be exposed to and made to address the tripartite question on a global stage. It is also not the first time that the state as a direct/indirect employer is occupying the public space in politically inconvenient ways.

The withdrawal of organised labour as a decisive player in the industrial relations world is also nothing new. Unions now represent just about 25% of the working population in T&T. So, there was Minister Baptiste – minus the open nuance of dual status – pledging to “re-establish and revitalise the national tripartite body to improve our dialogue with labour bodies”.

That was June. Let’s see how that goes. Before that, in April, the ILO office in POS responded to questions I had posed to DG Houngbo by pointing to declining trust among the main players and implications for the socio-economic well-being of our countries.

Almost everywhere you go, the ILO argues, economic and political instability is disrupting jobs and breaking down trust between workers, employers, and governments. The Caribbean hasn’t escaped that impact, and if you look closely, we are probably experiencing the worst of it.

Suriname, Belize, and Guyana are strengthening their tripartite bodies. Barbados, during and after the pandemic, also used its long-standing Social Partnership to manage major decisions - from job protection to tax reform. Yet there is, instructively, little acknowledgment on the ground in these countries of these officially declared achievements.

Social dialogue, comprising the three main players -  and I would add the unrepresented working class as a fourth and distinct constituency - is near total collapse in most of our countries. Some of this is due to the duality of interests as is the case in T&T – largely expressed as the state as - presumably but not reliably - a significant, benevolent employer.

There is also the state as sole/main provider when it comes to social protections. My concern is that the unrepresented cohort employed in the burgeoning informal sector is particularly victimised by the absence of institutionalised dialogue on such matters.

There has been a longstanding thrust aimed at the micro and small enterprise sector to encourage entry into the world of formal business. But it appears that the cultural bars to this have overwhelmed the institutional processes.

By this I mean that even as this sector is increasing in importance and, in a sense was a pandemic lifeline, our systems of governance continue to marginalise the associated enterprises.

Meanwhile, informality is weakening labour protections, dampening tax revenue, and undermining sustainable growth. In this respect, the ILO is suggesting that governments have not done nearly enough to tackle this.

Policies to shift workers and businesses into the formal economy are weak. Even worse, numerous registered companies are now relying more on temporary, unstable contracts that blur the line between formal and informal work.

There have been efforts by the T&T Chamber and other business groups, but these are yet to reach the level at which a broader embrace is achieved. The current administration would do well to pay much closer attention.

In the meantime, real, non-farcical, multipartite social dialogue awaits. We are nowhere near this in T&T. Trade unionists in power have never made a real difference, have they?

 

A constitution and voices on pause

Last Saturday’s T&T Guardian provided a fair, well-informed synopsis of our experience with states of public emergency since 2011. It’s worth reading. Get a copy and keep it for future reference.

For some of us, lived experience reaches back more than 55 years though. For a few, it begins in 1937 amid labour unrest. If we take the time to consider the objective circumstances distinguishing each episode, we can begin to unravel both their intent and outcomes and assess their appropriateness … as is the current challenge of 2025.

Sadly, there’s been little from academia or the legal field stepping up to help us make empirical sense of it all - the history, contexts, and now all 12 pages of the 2025 Emergency Powers Regulations (EPR).

Believe me, I’ve been scanning news and social media pages since last Friday for independent, informed expert commentary. It’s been rough going.

That word again - “independent” - a status viewed with suspicion in these times of single-message partisanship and punished with derision and scorn.

Even the newspaper columns by “independent” voices we ought to hear have been disturbingly absent or distracted - perhaps (if I were to be mean) wary of gratuitous official disfavour or the withholding of reward.

So, it fell to journalists last Saturday to outline the basics and to stimulate dormant awareness. For those of us particularly attuned to human rights issues, and justifiably disturbed whenever they arise, there’s also the recognition of deeper psychosocial consequences that transcend politics and ideology.

Because emergency powers are not experienced equally, not all of us felt touched by the turmoil of 1970. For many, it “had nothing to do with us … we not in that.”

Same for 1990. I remember radio callers wondering why there was such national alarm about something “only happening up north.” One person asked about a pizza competition; others chose peaceful slumber while the country was under siege - a mere “family quarrel” for some.

Then came 2011 and 2021 - differing in both intent and effect. The latter aligned more closely with Section 8(b) of the Constitution - “pestilence or (of) infectious disease.” The former far more tenuously linked to 8(c) involving “public safety.”

Had those with the skills and time occupied the crease, they might by now have provided useful comparative analyses of the 2011 and 2021 regulations versus the 2024 EPR - whose tone chillingly echoed 2011 and set off alarm bells for the rights-conscious among us.

As someone invested in freedom of expression, I note that even in the absence of explicit curfews, bans on assembly, or free movement, such prohibitions can be easily imposed.

For example, EPR 12(a) allows for the seizure and interrogation of computers and electronic devices – through state-sanctioned “home invasions.” And if, by some stretch, this very column is deemed able to “influence public opinion in a manner prejudicial to public safety” (EPR 11), I could find myself in trouble that ordinary law does not routinely cover – as target of a regulatory “drive by.”

This isn’t all theoretical. We had objected to such broad surveillance powers when the Data Protection Act was being shaped. And yes, we still retain seditious communication provisions under the Sedition Act. See where I’m going?

None of this suggests that we don’t face serious threats from organised or random criminal violence. Or that plots of all kinds don’t exist. The Police Commissioner does not appear to readily engage in fiction. But I thought that was why legislation has become increasingly draconian over the years – for the PC and his charges to go after the culprits.

We have Anti-Gang legislation, an Anti-Terrorism Act, a vast suite of criminal law, and ongoing security operations - all presumably capable of disrupting prison-based criminal conspiracies, detecting and dealing with planned political assassinations, intercepting illegal arms, and even preventing missile-launcher threats on government buildings.

But even these measures come with their own baggage: concerns about due process, excessive penalties, and infringements on property rights, mobility, and speech.

That’s why people have questioned the justification for the emergency measures in 2011, 2024, and 2025. For some, this applied to 1970, 1990, and 2021, which many such as I saw as far more consistent with constitutional intentions.

One major challenge in unpacking all this is the uneven impact on different communities and interests - and how perspectives shift depending on political alignment. Some find nothing wrong with 2025 but objected to 2024. Others who opposed 1970 are now cheering on 2025.

People without even one cocoa bean in either a rising or setting sun might be few and far between, but we don’t seem to be hearing their voices in the present din.