A bedtime story I was told as a child was about three friends – called Health, Wealth and Trust – who were about to part ways and were telling each other how they could meet again one day. So Health told his friends, “When you decide to find me, just walk up Exercise Road and then turn into Healthy Food Street and I will be right there waiting for you.” Wealth’s instructions were to “take Hard Work Road and turn into Patience Boulevard. Trust remained quiet. When pressed for an answer, he replied, “When I am gone, I can never be found again!”

As eyes rivet on constituency number 19 next week, whatever the outcome, one element is lost and it will never come back: Trust. That element started being eroded by an unprecedented level of nepotism and became more apparent when friends and family members started invading institutions hitherto fiercely independent and requiring total independence for their functioning. The Electoral Supervisory Commission was the last casualty in an open raid on independent institutions. Noticed how many editorialists have expressed the view that in spite of the electoral commissioner’s shortcomings in the last election, it is better that he stays in his position for fear that his replacement might be worse? Isn’t that telling of how little trust is left even in institutions never doubted before?

The “glaring discrepancies and lack of reconciliation of figures” in constituency no 19 highlighted by two judges as well as their warning and call for “greater vigilance” dealt another serious blow to the trust we had in some institutions. That trust, we are not likely to see again anytime soon. So the outcome of the recount in no 19 is not important. Whether Ivan Collendavelloo’s votes confirm the last count or even exceed it; whether he stays in parliament or the opposition gets another seat, the fact remains that “the glaring discrepancies and lack of reconciliation of figures” – which were persistently denied by the Office of the Electoral Commissioner – did take place, were admitted to two years later and that the ballot boxes have remained in the custody of people and institutions that no longer enjoy the trust of the public. This is rather serious as it casts a shadow over the most important democratic exercise in the country.

Though one has to be grateful that there are still judges of the calibre of Aruna Narain and Denis Mootoo – known for their fierce independence and courage – and that the Judiciary has by and large been spared the noxious influence of the executive, the time the petitions are taking to be processed while the ballot boxes are in the custody of institutions perceived not to be entirely above the fray, is regrettable. In many cases, we will perhaps not see justice done. If and when we do, a possible appeal to the Privy Council might delay matters until the next general election. Which means that some irreversible decisions might have been taken by people who had no legitimacy to take them.

So irrespective of the outcome of the recount, a code has been broken, revealing some rather nasty realities that have shaken the very foundations on which our democratic system is based. A final nail in the coffin of that dear ailing friend – Trust.