With all that is being made of the 2008 Budget presentation, the governing Jamaica Labour Party's first in two decades, one would expect that the public would bestir themselves to take more than a passing interest.

However, two sidebar stories in yesterday's Gleaner portray a signal lack of interest in critical physical quarters and, by extension, certainly a significant portion of the population. One, under the headline 'Little interest in Tivoli', records the general apathy to the Budget presentation in Prime Minister Bruce Golding's own constituency. The other, 'Slipping through security', illustrates just how lax the police cordon around Gordon House was, this in itself indicative of public apathy towards the physical location and, by extension, the proceedings therein.

For if the interest level was so high that many people turned out, certainly the police would have been more alert. And, truth be told, the only relatively recent incident that would prompt tighter security was the nocturnal firebombing of an unmanned entrance door.

That many Jamaicans are disengaged from the less intense aspects of the political process is no secret, what with the 40 per cent voter turnout in last December's local government polls. But certainly, one would expect that against the background of skyrocketing food and fuel prices, there would be deeper interest in the Budget presentation.

Of course, we will not take these two situations which The Gleaner recorded to be a full representation of the general public's attitude, but certainly it is a worrisome indicator of malaise in what would be expected to be points of intense involvement.

There can be any number of reasons for the disengagement, ranging from a need to get on with daily life in harsh economic times to disgust with the political system as a whole. As one man in Tivoli was reported as saying in typical local vernacular, it is time to get rid of the "pom pom pai", that is, the pomp and pride or pageantry associated with such events. Too many man-hours are lost in these ceremonies dating back to the days of colonialism, Busta and Manley, he argued. Perhaps there is more than a bit of folk wisdom there.

Whatever the reason, though, the removal of a significant portion of the public from this critical part of the democratic process is worrying. After all this business of democracy and all that it entails, from transparency to freedom of choice, is worth near naught if a huge portion of those whom it is meant to serve are simply not interested. As entertaining or worrying as scandals tend to be, they are but a smidgen of the nation's political affairs; and sniggering over a report of corruption and howling for highly placed heads to roll do not qualify as engagement in the democratic process.

Nor does simply casting a vote on election day. The political leaders of both major parties would be well advised to observe the emptiness beyond the barriers at Gordon House and consider just what and whom they represent.