Unfit for office

BOTH MEN should have had the decency to make the decision themselves. They did not. But at long last, Everald Warmington was forced to resign from the Cabinet. Happily, Dennis Meadows was de-selected as the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) candidate for the North Trelawny parliamentary constituency.

Nonetheless, the political ombudsman, a position that now inheres indivisibly in the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ), should still, acting at its own behest, make similar recommendations to Prime Minister Andrew Holness with respect to Mr Warmington, and to Mark Golding about Mr Meadows. Indeed, the EOJ has strong grounds to rule that their statements breached the political code of conduct, making them unfit to hold political office.

How the EOJ meets this test will be telling, given its ill-advised embrace of the Government’s proposal, subsequently formalised in law, to make the responsibilities of the political ombudsman a part of the commission, fording it to adjudicate on ethical, and sometimes nuanced political questions, rather than the hard technical issues on which it excelled.

Regarding Mr Warmington, his mealy-mouthed half-apology may have broken new ground for a maladaptive man-child. It, however, it wasn’t sufficient to extricate a government minister from rank, open and callous endorsement of political victimisation, whatever the spin may have been subsequently applied to the statement. Although Mr Warmington’s party initially distanced itself from his remarks, it was unfortunate that Prime Minister Holness did immediately eject him from the Government. Even with these developments it is likely that the Warmington/ Meadows affair deepens the cynicism Jamaicans have for the country’s politics and its governance. The distrust and scepticism was told in the less than 30 per cent of registered voters who cast ballots in Monday’s municipal election.

It, therefore, couldn’t have been just another case of Everald Warmington being Everald Warmington. At 72, he is too old for the role of enfant terrible and for people to be amused by it.

That Mr Meadows was repentant for his endorsement of the swindling of people, ostensibly because of their race, does not go far enough. Neither did his party’s repudiation of his position.

POOR JUDGEMENT

If indeed Mr Meadows didn’t, as he claimed, hold the views he espoused on a political platform, he nonetheless demonstrated appallingly poor judgement and a lack of maturity to make him unfit for public office, especially a seat in Parliament. And certainly not if the PNP is serious about leading a return to morality in public life and turning its face hard against corruption.

It is this context that made the Warmington and Meadows sagas important. This week’s local government elections was contested in the fashion of a national parliamentary poll.

The PNP and its leader, Mr Golding, sought to make the vote a referendum on the seven-year stewardship of Prime Minister Holness and his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Issues of governance, trust and fairness in the management of state resources were themes in the PNP’s campaign. It claimed that the Holness administration, in addition to other failures, fell way short on these fronts.

The Government insisted otherwise. But Prime Minister Holness admitted deficits in the quality of services local government authorities provided to communities and in how councillors engaged their divisions.

Mr Warmington, before he was forced out, was a minister in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, headed by Mr Holness. He had responsibility for infrastructure, including roads. Mr Warmington also represents the constituency of St Catherine South Western.

In Monday’s election, the PNP’s Kurt Waul won the Old Harbour division in Mr Warmington’s constituency. In the aftermath of the poll, the parliamentarian and former minister promised to withhold resources from Dr Waul.

Declaring himself the man “in charge”, Mr Warmington told JLP supporters:“... I am the minister of works and the member of parliament. No PNP councillor goin’ spend my money.”

MATTERS NAUGHT

It is unusual for Mr Warmington to backtrack or apologise for his many crude and offensive statements over his long political career. But facing a public backlash to the viral video remarks, he, this time, reached for the politician’s usual out-of-context defence. His statement, he said, was meant to be about money which MPs are allocated to spend in their constituencies (presumably from the Constituency Development Fund), as opposed to resources channelled to councillors from municipal authorities.

That mattered naught, and it was right that the Prime Minister finally told him that it was time to go.

First, these are taxpayers’ resources, not Mr Warmington’s. Further, Dr Waul will represent a division in Mr Warmington’s constituency, in a circumstance where MPs are expected to work with all councillors for the well-being and development of their constituencies. Mr Warmington made clear his intention to bypass Dr Waul.

Mr Warmington might otherwise have gotten away with his fudge. But there is another expletive-riddled campaign video in which he ranted against an opponent’s promise to bring water to a community. The only way that could happen, he said, was if the would-be councillor“p..s in the line”. He was in charge, the former minister declared.

Just as egregious was Mr Meadows’ statement of support and sympathy for so-called lottery scammers, who bilk mostly elderly Americans by telling them they won sweepstakes, but had to send them money to cover taxes and other costs in order to collect their winnings.

This, for Mr Meadows, was okay because white people had done the same to Jamaican black people during slavery. This criminal activity does not only have victims overseas.The fraud is widely held as being a fuel for crime in Jamaica, as the players kill each other for turf and for access to information about potential victims. It is to this that Mr Meadows, before he was called out, gave succour.

Perhaps now the political leaders, Prime Minister Holness and Mr Golding, will turn their attention to cleaning up their parties for a new form of governance that Jamaicans so badly want and need.