WITH the population at its most angry, confused and financially dispossessed — as it has never been for those who were not around in the mid to late 1970s — it would be more than interesting to determine if at the next elections that anger, confusion and lack of money will result in more people electing to vote, or more people pulling out of voting.

With the ruling People’s National Party (PNP) operating on the basis that it only needs to listen to itself, the party is losing a wonderful opportunity to hear what the people are saying at street level and how it is at wide variance with how the PNP sees its performance.

What is being touted now is macroeconomic numbers in the sense that the International Monetary Frund (IMF) owns first claim on our coffers. Another ‘passed’ IMF test means that we are on track to pay back our international lenders, instead of showing instant positives with which the population can relate.

Recently, United States President Barack Obama, who seems to have a much closer appreciation for the bridging of the gap between the macroeconomic numbers and the reality at street level said, said: “More people will feel this recovery, rather than reading about it in stats on a page.”

At this stage in Jamaica, the ‘stats on a page’ cannot be discounted, but if it takes a year and ten thousand days to get our people to ‘feel’ economic growth, the stats-on-a-page pronouncement from political podiums will wear thin and the anger will increase.

It is my understanding that two sets of polls by two different polling outfits have been completed, and the results are, should I say, shockingly negative to the ruling PNP. As I have heard it, the gaps are not just wide, in the sense that midway through its term the PNP is in the negative territory that one would expect from respondents who know there is no immediate election on the horizon.

The gaps, as I said, are huge, that is if my sources are to be believed. Sources aside, all one has to do is to engage people on the corners throughout Jamaica or listen to then talk in bars. The anger is blatantly without pretence, and it is growing.

Stats on a page mean little to the woman struggling to feed her children with porridge and crackers, noodle soup and dumplings, bag juice and cheese trix, while negotiating the cost of getting them off to school.

Add to that people falling ill by the hundreds each day with chik-V and one begins to understand why elected representatives are conveniently absent from their constituencies. They are afraid to show their faces because they have no immediate answers to give the people.

The very fact that for weeks now our people have convinced themselves that chik-V is an airborne disease speaks to the lack of trust that they have in the Government’s ability to handle the outbreak. Minister Fenton Ferguson says one thing, while the people care little about his words. He just does not get it.

Recently, I was invited to do a phone ‘link-up’ with an evening talk show on Newstalk 93FM hosted by Garfield Higgins. Also on the link was the stalwart from the west, Shalman Scott.

As we began to discuss what I saw as Health Minister Fenton Ferguson’s poor handling of the chik-V outbreak, Shalman Scott started speaking of the minister’s integrity and how good a man he is.

As I interrupted him, I pointed out that I was not questioning the minister’s integrity. I am certain that Minister Ferguson is a decent human being. When I said that Scott sounded like a politician on the hustings — he is a former politician. He seemingly blew a gasket, stated quite firmly that he did not come on the programme to be attacked, then said: “As a matter a fact, I am leaving right now!”

And that’s what he did. I have been on just about every radio programme in this country, and in many matters I have faced biting questions and harsh criticisms. I have never ‘lapped my tail’ between my legs and ran away. Better to not show up than do so; expose my thin skin then bleat and run for cover.

If Mr Scott, who was once a mayor of MoBay on the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) ticket and a university lecturer, believes that his name and position in society must act as a deterrent to any criticisms of positions he may hold, I need to tell him that he — a quite decent man as I have been told — needs to wake up to the fact that big, small, voiceless, powerful and powerless, none of us are intrinsically better that any other.

Those who would want to come out to bat on behalf of the PNP Administration will find that they will be coming under heavy criticisms as the unpopularity of the PNP increases.