Dawn Ritch, Columnist

Having had a general election in the country, the political temperature has still not cooled. Quite the opposite: It has been inflamed.

The great nightmare Bruce Golding has is that the seat count in the House of Representatives could be reversed before the year is out. Certainly, if the two magisterial recounts go to the People's National Party (PNP), the split might be 29 to 31 in favour of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). No sitting Prime Minister would consider trying to govern with 30:30, not even Golding.

Dual citizenship

There are two other cases before the courts concerning the dual citizenship of winning JLP candidates. The Jamaican Constitution expressly forbids this among elected officials. The list of those with United States (U.S.) and other alien citizenship, as well as Jamaican, and who sit in the House, is growing.

The Prime Minister's nightmare grows with each passing week. Theoretically, it could be said that the only true-blue Member of Parliament sitting in the House is Sharon Hay-Webster. She was born in the U.S. and upon her majority, applied for citizenship in Jamaica. This she was entitled to because of Jamaican parentage. She is, therefore, probably the only one of the Members of Parliament who have taken an oath of allegiance to the Queen. The others didn't have to do so, because they were born here, and did not have to gain citizenship by naturalisation.

Members of the British Commonwealth can serve as members of the Jamaican House of Representatives. No other countries' citizens are allowed to do so without renunciation of their foreign allegiance.

The thought of seven or eight U.S. citizens reaching up into the highest levels of the ruling party is alarming, to say the least. This makes a mockery of Jamaica's Independence.

Even before the parliamentarians were sworn in, our new Prime Minister had already received an emblem of the U.S. global fleet station and a navy baseball cap. A photograph of him wearing it, holding the emblem to his body and about to slap-happy the outstretched hand of a U.S. naval commander appeared on the front page of this newspaper a week ago.

This was very embarrassing indeed. It lacks the necessary decorum and sovereign distance required of a Jamaican Prime Minister, especially one who has just come to office. The news that the U.S. government subsequently gave US$35 million to the Jamaican Government for drug interdiction and crime fighting is also sad.

The U.S. has already made a nonsense of Colombia by pouring in billions of U.S. dollars for that purpose. This has led to a virtual civil war in Colombia, where one section o f the country is held by FARC rebels.

Cocaine trade

The cocaine trade then shifted to Bolivia. In fact, as soon as the U.S. applies pressure to one country, the trade burgeons in another, up and down the Andes. It's like a giant water hose. But the U.S. still will not leave well enough alone. They have been losing the war on drugs for two decades now, but remain undeterred. Increased aid of this sort Jamaica could hardly need.

I think the matter should be debated in Parliament. The trouble is that as constructed at present, the decision is already a fait accompli due to the surfeit of U.S. citizens who will make it. It also means that Jamaica's Foreign Affairs Minister might not have a free hand when representing the country at the United Nations. Even more pressure than before can now be applied to the Jamaican Prime Minister by any U.S. president or secretary of state regarding any matter that ought to be only a reflection of Jamaica's sovereign interests.

We have become a poodle. Even a slave was a human being, but a poodle is not - a British poodle perhaps, but not a Jamaican one.

The wife of the Prime Minister, Lorna, has already been received by Laura Bush, wife of the U.S. president at a so-called first-wives luncheon in Washington, D.C. Yet, we have no first wives nor first husbands.

I find all this cosying up to the United States deeply suspicious and offensive. This is particularly so since nobody wants to cosy up to the Queen, except in secrecy and hiding. And she is the head of the British Commonwealth of which we continue to be members.

The sooner all the U.S. citizens sitting in the Jamaican Parliament are removed, the happier I'll be. I don't want U.S. citizenship for myself, nor do I wish Jamaica to become a state of the United States like Puerto Rico.

Were an opinion poll to be done, however, three quarters of Jamaicans would probably want such citizenship, and more than a third would probably want Jamaica to become a U.S. state. Nevertheless, I don't think we should be taken there through the back door. I rather like things the way they are.

But it is clear that the Jamaica Labour Party does not. Their perpetual seeking of court injunctions against having certain votes and ballot boxes counted is probably an attempt to retain their slim majority in the Parliament.

Magisterial recount

Like many others, I thought a magisterial recount was as far as things could go. But the Supreme Court has become involved, and conceivably all this legal wrangling could end up in the Privy Council. Not only criminal matters, but civil issues thought to be of public importance can be sent to the Privy Council. If defamation can get there, constitutional issues most certainly can. This means that a state of parliamentary flux could be maintained for many years to come.

Placed upon a tenuous electoral majority, is, therefore, such a burden of legal and constitutional matters that it is sure to buckle. What moral authority could the Prime Minister have?

It seems to me, therefore, that another general election is more likely in the short term than a local-government election. This is not necessarily a good thing for Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller.

The September 3 election demonstrated that the JLP is far better funded than the PNP. Golding's war chest still gleams with gold. Hers was threadbare to begin with. There is nothing to suggest that the money that was on his side would suddenly leap over to hers.

The Prime Minister should not call another general election without getting rid of the U.S. citizens on his team. To do otherwise would be to mislead the Jamaican people and display divided allegiances.

It is the mere thought of these fifth columns which has soured the election victory for the JLP. Their supporters are somewhat angry and sad. They want to crow, and can't. Consequently, if Jamaica was tribalist before, that has now gone into overdrive.