Everything that is hidden …
AS I pointed out some weeks ago, campaigning is well under way for the next general election due by 2025. The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) have been badly shaken and disoriented by the extent of the swing towards the People’s National Party (PNP). Did they forget that t hey were t he government when they walked out of Gordon House during the Budget Debate last Tuesday? It is usually opposition parties that stage parliamentary walkouts.
In this column two weeks ago I presented some of the results of my mathematical exploration of the February 26 local government elections. I pointed out that if that balloted poll were a general election (of course it wasn’t), sixteen seats presently held by the JLP would have flipped to the PNP (I named them two weeks ago). The JLP would still have won 32 seats to the PNP’s 31, and would govern with a razor-thin majority of one.
What I didn’t say then (it’s always good to save a little bit for later), was that of the 62 seats the JLP would have hypothetically won, five would have been retained by a margin of less than 250 votes. The five and the calculated margins are:
• Manchester North East ( 62 votes)
• Clarendon South East (130 votes)
• St. Andrew Eastern
(202 votes)
• St Elizabeth South West (218 votes)
• St Catherine East Central (247 votes)
A slight further swing to the PNP (the bandwagon effect would have already achieved that), would see the PNP winning 36 seats to the JLP’s 27, to govern with an eightseat majority. Time will tell how large the swing will be, and by how many seats the PNP will win. One hopes it will not be a landslide: it is never good to have a lopsided parliament; it gives too much power to the winning party.
CAMPAIGN MANTRA
The campaign mantra of the JLP over the last many years is that the PNP is too divided and inexperienced to govern, that they have no credible and workable policies, and that the JLP is the only party that can govern Jamaica. Mr Golding’s budget speech strongly suggests that the JLPs case is overstated.
But to drive home the point, Mr Golding needs to go further. It is not enough just to complain that the Speaker (read the government) is withholding reports of the Integrity Commission and the auditor general from the Parliament and the people. Mr Golding must commit a future PNP government (this could be in the very near future, it seems) to codify the immediate tabling of these reports when submitted.
It is not enough for Mr Golding to call on the government to release the names of the six parliamentarians under credible suspicion of illicit enrichment; Mr Golding must give an undertaking that the PNP, when re-elected, will make legal arrangements for the six MPs – and all those in the future under credible suspicion of corruption – to be named.
It is not enough for Mr Golding to call on the prime minister to explain to the people why his statutory declarations over the last two years cannot be certified by the Integrity Commission. Mr Golding must declare that if and when the PNP win the next election, they will remove the gag clause from the Integrity Commission Act to allow Jamaica’s anti-corruption agency to tell us why they cannot certify.
What is being purposely hidden in the dark, will one day be revealed! The JLP cannot expect to hide the truth forever.
STRAIGHT TALK
That kind of straight talk should pull some of those who refuse to vote “because both parties are equally corrupt” into polling stations in 2025.
Mark Golding knows that he has corrupt persons in his party, and that the PNP has a sordid history of corruption. The PNP’s internal Integrity Commission has not been overworked. Corrupt politics attracts corrupt people, out to get their share of the spoils. The time is ripe to set Jamaica’s politics on a different footing, and time will tell whether Mark Jefferson Golding has the strength of character (read cojones) to make his mark on history.
In the past, Jamaica’s politicians sought power through populism; this is to be avoided. New national heroes must be exemplars for our young people – in their public and private morals and in their family life. The PNP does not need to descend into populism to win the 2025 general election.
The creeping authoritarianism of the Andrew Holness administration does not sit well with many in this land. The refusal of the Constitutional Reform Commission to conduct meaningful public education and consultation means that there will be no constitutional reform on their watch.
Every Jamaican parent knows that the best schools i n the country are run by churches and private trusts; governmentowned and operated schools lack the ethos to deliver top-quality education. The unpopularity of the Holness government will i ncrease as they seek to concentrate more power i n the hands of the minister of education by seizing control of church- and trust-owned schools. This will only drag down the quality of existing top-flight schools, and further depreciate Jamaica’s failing education system.
I encourage the churches and trusts to codify their historic mutually beneficial relationship in some sort of memorandum of understanding to protect their schools from government depredation.