Dear Editor,
The PPP/C’s elections campaign has taken a nasty turn. One arm has leaned on disguised vote-buying and selective, distorted facts. Another has descended into language so coarse and abusive as to be unprintable. It is not confined to fringe voices. Leonard Craig, Joseph Hamilton, and even the Vice President himself have joined in.
Minister Vindhya Persaud, to her credit, spoke out against the conduct. But hers was a lone voice, quickly drowned by the noise of the campaign. The party or its women’s arm took no corrective action. GECOM, which is supposed to safeguard fairness, has remained silent. The Ethnic Relations Commission, which had only weeks ago promoted a code of conduct, also looked away.
What is even more striking is who has been asked to carry the harshest lines. It is not the party’s leadership, but campaigners given licence to say what the leaders will not. Their role is clear: to reach certain voters while proving their loyalty and securing their place. They are being used, while the leadership hides its hands.
The problem runs deeper. The PPP continues to shelter individuals facing serious criminal charges, including sexual misconduct. When vulgarity, falsehoods, and compromised candidates are tolerated, the damage goes beyond politics. It corrodes society itself. It lowers standards, teaches the young that indecency is strength, and normalises such behaviour.
Some argue these tactics come from desperation or fear of the opposition. But fear cannot justify filth. The contrast between them is clear: opposition parties, even the one most vilified, are running restrained campaigns, focusing on issues more than personalities. They have shown that an election can be fought without dragging the nation into the gutter.
This matters because once such behaviour is accepted, it is not easily reversed. Today it is vulgar language, tomorrow it may be worse – harming members of the opposition and their supporters. If standards collapse, elections will no longer be contests of ideas but battles of abuse. That is the road the PPP/C is taking the nation.
This is not healthy politics. It is distortion and vulgarity, a degradation of our society and its standards. Decent voters should recoil – and show their disapproval come September 1.
Sincerely,
Christopher Ram