Page 5 Ralph

RALPH VOLCERE’S WEEK

THE SPPF IS TREADING ON QUICK SAND

In the 29 years that the SPPF have been in government taxpayers have not had value for the money they have contributed towards the public purse. The standard of education, health and other services in the country does not reflect the resources invested. Resources have been squandered and have gone in areas other than where they were intended. Friends and family of those connected with party leaders have benefited enormously through generous contracts awarded by ministries. Sums of money changed hands “under the table” at the detriment of the country.

In its inability to put forward new ideas of how to deal with the consequences of their kleptomanic behaviours, the SPPF now resorts to scaring the electorate into not voting in an alternative government, which the electorate rightly deserve. The people in opposition are worse than us, seems to be the SPPF message. You are better off with the devil you know, their weekly mouthpiece, ‘The People’, cries out week in week out. This in itself is an admission of guilt. It is like a husband saying to the long suffering wife who has decided to leave him, that all men are the same in his desperation to keep the lady.

Unless Mr. Michel can come up with conclusive plans of his own of how he intend to deal with the deterioration in the socioeconomic life of Seychelles, he cannot expect the people to trust him and his party with another term. The SPPF have had ample time and chances in the fifteen years of multi-party to sort out the difficulties they landed this country in through the bad practises under one-party rule. They have not done so because their priority is to retain political power above all else, even over the economic wellbeing of the country. The policies of Mr. Michel and the SPPF have been nothing more than populist, aimed at pleasing only 51% of the electorate.

The people have now seen through this strategy and are very concerned with the long term economic future of the country. But now that it is obvious the SPPF will be rejected at the polls the SPPF leadership has resorted to unethical tactics making unjustified personal attacks on individuals in the opposition. We need to call them to order because there are numerous unanswered questions the people would like to have answers to before making a final decision for whom to vote for in the coming election. One such matter is the circumstances surrounding the violent death of a young man closely linked to the SPPF hierarchy. What are the reasons that led to his death? Don’t the SPPF think the people would want to know exactly what happened?

There are numerous other matters some involving powerful people concerning non-consensual sex and sex with minors. These are sensitive issues which the opposition have decided, through an unwritten arrangement, to stay clear of out of political decency. However, the way the SPPF have been conducting themselves lately overstepping all boundaries in their desperation at retaining political power, perhaps the time has come to rethink this strategy. Time will tell.