Our Government in the balances (Part 2) nd
SO, 14.8 PER cent of Jamaicans say they would vote for the People’s National Party (PNP) in the upcoming general election (partly) because the party involves citizens in decision-making. They are respondents i n the April 2024 poll carried out by Market Research Services Limited and commissioned by the PNP. Are these Jamaicans saying they would vote for the PNP because they involve citizens in decision-making or are they saying they would not vote for the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) because they don’t involve citizens in decision-making?
The Government’s ratings have taken a nosedive largely on account of its stubborn dismissal of concerns regarding public sector compensation when it increased the salaries of many members of the political directorate by triple digit percentages, while giving unimpressive increases to many government workers at lower levels.
There are other incidents, however, that have raised serious concerns for many voters about the government’s style of governance.
For several years, the Government has tried to use states of emergency (SOEs) to help curb the raging crime rates. The SOEs allow the Government to temporarily give security forces additional powers, including authority to conduct searches and to arrest and detain persons for up to seven days without a warrant.
For context, the Government can legally initiate an SOE for two weeks, and after that it needs to obtain a two-thirds majority vote in both the Lower House and the Senate to extend the SOE for up to three months at a time.
While the Government can easily garner enough votes in the Lower House due to its overwhelming majority, it will need at least one vote from the opposition in the Senate in order to meet the twothirds requirement. This is so by deliberate design to prevent the easy or arbitrary exercise of extraordinary powers by any government.
In 2018, the opposition seemed to adopt a position which disagreed with the continued use of SOEs. According to the opposition, the SOEs were being used in a manner that was unconstitutional, so they collectively decided to withdraw their support in Parliament. After years of the Government not being able to properly execute its SOE crime plan, we heard the country would be undergoing a ‘constitutional reform’ process because, among other reasons, the Constitution was apparently constraining the Government’s ability to respond to threats in cases where it doesn’t have the support of the opposition.
It seemed the SOE controversy had helped to precipitate the creation of an entire ministry for Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
ACCOUNTABILITY PROBLEM
Besides a domineering or strong-willed approach to decision-making, in the minds of many voters, the Government also has an accountability problem. The frequent shuffling around of ministers to portfolios they have absolutely no expertise in, while not necessarily unique to this Government, has not helped to build trust, especially since the precedent seems to be that ministers get shifted whenever they are accused of wrongdoing within their respective ministries. Furthermore, when ministers do engage in wrongdoing there seems to be a strong reluctance to call them out or hold them accountable.
Shortly after the local government election earlier this year, when it became clear that the people had elected a PNP representative as councillor for the Old Harbour South division, the then minister with responsibility for works said over a microphone while speaking to party representatives “I am the minister of works ... no PNP councillor goin’ spend my money”. Within a short while, we heard from the prime minister that he had ‘resigned’ from the Cabinet. He had also resigned as chairman of the JLP’s Area Council Two.
One month after, he withdrew his resignation as Area Council Two chairman, telling journalists that he has to do all in his power to stop the PNP from winning the next election. At the surface, the prime minister seemed not to be much more than an observer in all of this, since he offered no material comment on the behaviour which necessitated the resignation nor on its withdrawal. Why should political expediency trump accountability?
It is very similar to the case of another government minister who, at the height of the COVID19 pandemic, was seen on camera toasting to “no-movement day” at a social event on a day during which the country was to be under a lockdown. Unsurprisingly, Jamaicans were outraged upon discovering that while they were cooped up in their houses, a minister of the same government which had put them under lockdown could be gallivanting at a hotel while clearly flouting COVID-19 protocol.
That minister ‘resigned’ from his duties as the minister of agriculture in the face of public outrage. Where is he now, not much more than two years later? Well, he is the minister of agriculture. It took the country less than two years to blew off its steam and no sooner than that point had come, he was reinstated to the position he had ‘resigned’ from.
These are just examples of a broader issue plaguing the minds of voters, and that issue surrounds accountability, transparency, and the involvement of citizens in decision-making. Sadly, this issue is detracting from the progress the government has made in other areas, and rightfully so. Is it too late for a turnaround? No, of course not. But in order to make a U-turn, one first has to admit they are heading in the wrong direction.