Dawn Ritch, Columnist
The country has yet to understand the parlous state in which she finds herself.
Jamaica has had the People's National Party (PNP) Government for 17 years, and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Opposition for the duration.
How did it all last so long, this comfortable accommodation between the two major political parties which has held the country in thrall? This was the politics of consensus in the most deadly form, the politics of perpetuating oneself in power.
Too much intellectualism
I'm convinced that there has been too much intellectualism and mutual masturbation in the House of Representatives. This is the main reason for the island's downfall. The representatives of the two sides of the House have sat there for the past 17 years accommodating each other in the most shameless fashion.
Every time the Opposition objected to something or the public did so, a committee was formed by the former Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson. This led to reports being written and filed in the House, new statutory bodies formed and funded, and reams of new legislation and amendments passed. This busy schedule created the fiction that Patterson was really doing something about anything.
The PNP Government has passed more legislation than all previous governments combined. Former Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson, was proud of this record, while presiding over the greatest period of public racketeering that the country has ever known.
Corruption is the inevitable result, however, of the overregulation of society. What the Government has done is to introduce more and more pieces of red tape into the administration of public business. Only money cuts red tape. This is a clarion call to every crook in the place, and a huge disincentive and costly burden to every honest citizen.
Much of this recent legislation was, it seems to me, a knee-jerk reaction to the nine-day wonder of the moment. I am not convinced therefore, that any of it makes sense, much less fails to fly in the face of existing regulations. Everybody keeps doing the wrong thing and saying "Oops! That was a law passed last week." Woe betide, therefore, any honest citizen who takes his eye off the ball for four years. Who will strike this Gordion knot?
The Stone Poll rates Bruce Golding as doing a better job as Opposition Leader, than Portia Simpson Miller is doing as Prime Minister. If Golding himself has anything to do with the welter of new legislation now tying the hands of the Prime Minister, he could be described as doing better as Opposition Leader than she as prime minister. But that dubious honour goes to former Opposition Leader Edward Seaga, who was more than happy to facilitate the bi-partisan consensus and legislative calendar. Mrs. Simpson Miller's predecessor even boasted that he'd taken on board his every objection. This is how government by consensus is run, and Patterson was a past master of it.
Civil Service has collapsed
For want, therefore, of the proper attention and respect, the Jamaican Civil Service has collapsed. Good public administrators are a thing of the past. Mandarins of red tape before, 17 years after a confetti of new legislation, the civil service has become the concrete expression of passive resistance to any initiative that makes sense. As a consequence, no work goes on anywhere in government, and corruption abounds, facilitated by the private sector.
It's so bad that the politicians have taken to distributing government benefits themselves under a range of schemes. Today, if you want help you go to the Member of Parliament's constituency office, instead of the local poor relief office. Both sides of the House scramble for more money under these schemes, and call it good government.
The question is therefore very simple. Which person is likely to form study groups and vote cash increases for parliamentarians to use in their seats in any way they see fit? Bruce Golding of course. At first he said that MPs shouldn't have such slush funds. Then he said he'd increase it, such is the inconsistency of the man - neither fish nor fowl, but always dangerously in search of personal popularity.
When Golding formed the National Democratic Movement (NDM), he said he'd turned his back on garrison politics and called for their dismantling. Then he goes back to the JLP and heads up the biggest garrison of all. He certainly suits himself, but this can hardly be described as either consistent or trustworthy. To be fair, perhaps his intention is to dismantle the West Kingston garrison if and when he becomes prime minister.
Today he speaks at what he says will be his last JLP annual conference as Opposition Leader. Before that, he was giving his Christmas message from Jamaica House. He talks a lot, but I don't think he thinks about what he says, or quite frankly, even what he does. This is why his return to the JLP will always look like a shotgun marriage.
A pile of money has been spent trying to improve his image. At the end of the day, all polls show the two parties in a dead heat, largely because of the PNP decline, and not a gain in support for the JLP.
Dead heat
The September Don Anderson polls found the two parties in a dead heat. Subsequently and currently both the Bill Johnson and the Stone Poll respectively, also found the parties in a dead heat. The Anderson Poll was conducted prior to both the Trafigura Affair and the revelations of the Sandals Whitehouse scandal before the Public Accounts Committee. The parties were, therefore, in a dead heat, both before and after. This suggests that had Mrs. Simpson Miller and the PNP been out in the field half as much as the JLP over the past two months, and spent half the money, there would have been no deadlock.
It is still not too late to change the leader of the JLP, especially one who, whether as leader of the NDM or the Labour Party, spends money to improve his own personal image but fails to promote his own party. Indeed, that has been his only consistency. At least Karl Samuda, when he was expelled from the JLP under Golding's chairmanship, didn't do the dishonourable thing and form another party to split the JLP vote. He just went into the PNP, ran and won a seat, and then came back. He is, therefore, a far more credible JLP Leader than Golding, who formed the NDM merely because he was desperate and impatient for leadership.
Mrs. Simpson Miller is not about to make herself cozy with Golding, or any Opposition leader for that matter, in order to create nonsensical legislation. No matter how rated he is as Opposition Leader, Golding is unlikely to keep that post when he loses the next election. The doors of the JLP should then be firmly shut against him, so that it can return to its roots.
