The threat of anarchy
In a society already burdened with economic hardship, public corruption normalises criminal behaviour, and the present extent of urban poverty accelerates the drift into anarchy we are witnessing.
In the capital city, public order is rapidly disappearing, leaving a growing criminal element to rob, maim, and murder with impunity. As one travels around the city, the deterioration is palpable. Just visit Half-Way Tree any night when the police are not out in their numbers and observe the mayhem created as the ‘loaders’ for public transport and street vendors take charge. A windscreen wiper informed me that he and some of his friends now do a double shift at both the traffic lights at Waterloo Road and Liguanea to make ends meet.
In St James, murders jumped more than 41 per cent, up to August 3, compared to the corresponding period last year despite a state of emergency, a zone of special operations, and Operation Restore Paradise active. The crime and antisocial behaviour that overruns May Pen and Savanna-la-Mar will spread to other towns where poverty is on the rise.
Municipal corporations no longer have the authority to enforce parochial laws, and the undermanned and under-resourced police force, riddled with corruption, will not be able to protect law-abiding citizens against the wave of anarchy that threatens to overwhelm us.
Whither Jamaica’s political parties?
Where do Jamaica’s political parties stand in all of this? The failure of successive administrations over the past four decades to make life better for the majority of Jamaicans has eroded public confidence in political parties. In the 2016 general election, only 47.7 per cent of electors marked ballots, and the present administration was elected by less than 25 per cent of the electorate.
This dramatic increase in poverty totally discredits the Holness-Clarke trickle-down economic policy that has increasingly concentrated wealth at the top, indebtedness in the middle, and incarceration among the poor, which keeps Jamaica among the most inequitable societies in the world.
It also forces the electorate to re-examine its criteria for political leadership. The initial ‘romance’ with youthfulness and style has completely evaporated with Holness’ failure. An electorate faced with rising poverty will increasingly opt for leadership that brings to the table a solid record of performance and the capacity to fix what is going wrong. Based on these criteria, Peter Phillips remains head and shoulders above all his colleagues. The Bill Johnson polls confirm that the People’s National Party (PNP), under Phillips’ leadership, is closing the gap on the JLP, and the driving factor is the increased activism of the party inside and outside Parliament.
All those who yearn for an alternative to the Holness administration want to see a united PNP consolidate its readiness to govern by engaging the public even more in a constructive dialogue to present its vision of a more equitable and inclusive Jamaica together with the policies and programmes to realise this vision.
Unbelievably, at this time, when the PNP is moving in the right direction, a leadership challenge threatens the unity so necessary for further progress. Would Peter Bunting not better serve the party by being a more effective shadow minister of industry, investment, and competitiveness? How can the holder of this critical portfolio remain so silent while the party promotes its policy of expanding ownership and entrepreneurship at the base of the society to build a more equitable Jamaica?
Since 2006, no administration has been re-elected, and the present administration, with its unprecedented record of corruption and mismanagement, is set to lose the next election. The only straw for Holness to clutch at is the potential of Bunting’s leadership challenge to so wound the PNP as to give the JLP a chance in the next general election. Take warning!