After losing her bid to have the recent election in Pinewood overturned by the Election Court Mrs. Allyson Maynard-Gibson took the high road and said something to the effect that she only went to court to protect our democratic system.

A friend asked, rhetorically I’m sure, if she would have done the same thing had she won the seat?

It is doubtful she would have, but it begs the question that if the PLP knew the Election process was flawed, why didn’t they correct it after they won in a landslide in 2002?

Are they prepared to win with a flawed process, but not lose the same way?

I tend to agree with the position that had the PLP called the election when Constitutionally mandated, the errors on the Register of Voters might not have been so egregious as they were in the Constituency of Pinewood. The Parliamentary Commissioner and his staff might have had time to resolve most of the errors.

Yes, most of the errors. There will always be people that try to out smart the system and these should be challenged on polling day when the poll workers are armed with the results of the door to door canvassing by the political proponents as usual.

All that aside, I agree with the pundits that it is time for the rhetoric to stop on both sides of the political divide so the country can move forward. The PLP need to drop the pending cases and the FNM need to ease up on the needling.

It seems pointless to continue to rile citizens up over the election results. The election is over. The FNM won and the PLP lost.

If there are legitimate cases of fraud, those individuals should be prosecuted, including the bearer of of alleged fake ballots on election day.

Maybe, just maybe, if we start prosecuting people for illegal activity, we will start moving citizens toward obeying the law, rather than recklessly ignoring it as so many of us do.

It’s now time to ‘move forward, upward, onward together’ as our motto implores us.

The race is over for a while and the checkered flag has been waved.