Over the past week, elections were held in two of CARICOM’s larger countries- Jamaica and Guyana, resulting in repeat victories for the incumbents. From major reports and responses, one gets the impression that the most significant aspect was the result. Thus, in Trinidad and Tobago, in the contentious and strife-ridden elections of 1971, the PNM party, led by the late Dr Eric Williams, won all the seats. Why did 6 out of 10 registered voters not vote in a time of much greater enlightenment? We are supposed to have past that stage, but where elections are concerned, in the words of the late Vincentian calypso bard, Mystic Prowler, who won the coveted Calypso Monarch title in Trinidad and Tobago in 1998, we need to“look beneath the surface”.