Rekindling Vale Royal Talks

THE POLITICAL parties were skimpy on the substance of Wednesday’s session of the Vale Royal Talks, but the fact that the discussion has restarted after a hiatus of several years is good for Jamaica.

This value is accounted for on a number of fronts. Among them is that it takes place outside the public glare. This lessens the incentive towards public theatre and contrived outrage, which then morphs into hardened positions that make consensus difficult, if not impossible.

Few things, at this time, matter more to Jamaicans than their safety, security, and maintenance of their democracy. In that respect, the issues – national security, parliamentary procedures, and voter re-verification – with which the leaders of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (and the People’s National Party) launched this round of talks are significant and self-evident.

Last year, there were 1,616 homicides in Jamaica, an increase of more than 20 per cent, after a double-digit hike in 2016. Despite a slowdown in murders in recent weeks, in the face of the declaration of states of emergency in two parishes, murders for the first quarter of 2018 are running ahead of the corresponding period in 2017. The fear of crime is palpable in Jamaica, evidenced, in part, by strong public support for the emergency measures, even though they weaken constitutional protections for all citizens.

It has been easy, up to now, for political parties, playing to their bases, to extract political capital from this sense of insecurity that, paradoxically, works to their interests. For the failure to mount a sustained assault against brazen criminality, and social disorder it breeds helps in the perpetuation of garrison communities, dons, and politically aligned, gang-based racketeers. And garrisons, by and large, represent a corralling of votes.

The consensus for which we look from the Vale Royal discussions, therefore, is not just an agreement to allocate resources for the fighting of crime per se, but on a deeper and broader and more contextual engagement of national security. In that regard, we expect to emerge from these talks with an agreement, at least on first steps of withdrawal by political parties from actions, attitudes or behaviours that shore-up garrisons and the people who enforce them. Agreement on the anti-corruption initiatives is also important.

DELIVER A PLAN

The dismantling of garrisons demands commitment to democracy and the systems and processes that underpin this form of government. Nowhere is this more important than in the integrity of electoral arrangements. That is why we are heartened that these talks included discussion of voter re-verification and an undertaking for the electoral commission to, within a month, deliver a plan to ensure the maintenance of a ‘clean’ voters register.

Jamaica’s electoral system has come a long way from 40 years ago when voter intimidation and ballot-box stuffing were rife. People are assured that electoral outcomes represent the will of voters. But recently, quarrels developed over the absence of funds to undertake voter re-verification exercise unnecessarily threatened confidence in the system. Hopefully, the uncertainty over this matter is on its way to a resolution as well as the modernisation of the structures of Parliament to allow for a deepened involvement and greater accessibility of all members, including those in the Opposition and those who sit on the back benches.

Yet while we support the Vale Royal process, we are clear that these talks represent, for us, only the opening engagement on these matters. They do not preclude additional, and even separate, discussions in other fora, with the involvement of additional stakeholders.