The National Democratic Movement (NDM) laments the calling of a general election 11 months before it is constitutionally due, without there being a national disaster or crisis. This is the clearest indication yet, that Portia Simpson Miller’s People’s National Party Administration, after four years in office, cannot face the people after the next budget is presented. Hence, the governing party is attempting to trick the people into giving them another term in office, without telling us the truth of the hardships which will be unleashed upon the backs of the poor and middle classes.
The NDM is of the view that the last four years of following International Monetary Fund (IMF) orders slavishly, like a headman on a slave estate, administering lashes on a poor defenceless people, devaluing our dollar to a precipitously low level; demanding more production while making food, health care and social services become less accessible to the people of Jamaica, has not solved Jamaica’s problems. The NDM again calls on the people of Jamaica to demand that the following issues be placed on the table in the upcoming general election:
[1] When will tax & pension reforms be implemented, and how many public sector workers will be laid off after the general election?
[2] Fixed date for elections and separate ballots for prime minister and members of parliament.
[3] Members of parliament must serve the people who elect them and make good laws rather than appointments to Cabinet.
[4] Abolish personal income tax (PAYE) and have one equitable General Consumption Tax system.
[5] Focus on the young by facilitating permanent jobs for the main categories of high school and university graduates.
[6] Fix national security and justice with adequate resources and training for the police, the judiciary and implementing a national ID system.
[7] Fix the health sector by simply upgrading the hospitals and making available proper health services by introducing an Ability-to-Pay Basis System.
[8] Fix the education system by refocusing on early childhood education by bringing it within the formal education system.
[9] Dismantle the garrison structure in constituencies (which represent approximately twenty-five per cent of voters).
[10] Create the structure and environment for a fully transparent government and creating the foundation for a real sovereign people.
The NDM believes that the people of Jamaica must demand real systemic change.
The NDM also believes that both the Jamaica Labour Party and the People’s National Party have dug Jamaica into the economic hole in which we have found ourselves and are continuing the same old and unproductive policies directed by the IMF and others.
We have, for the past 72 years, been swapping one set of failed party policies for another, and is of the view that it is mainly some in Jamaica’s private sector and other special interests who fund the old status quo politics that get most of the benefits from the present system of poor governance.
PNP can’t face J’cans