LEAVE THE KEYS ON YOUR WAY OUT AND DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU WHERE …

The new­ly elect­ed JLP Administration is not yet sworn in yet there are two devel­op­ments wor­thy of note from the Prime Minister des­ig­nate and the Labor Party which seem to sug­gest that the par­ty and it’s leader intend to lead by example.
(1) Prime Minister des­ig­nate Andrew Holness issued direc­tives that the tra­di­tion of sell­ing Government vehi­cles to out­go­ing Ministers would not be happening .
Simply put accord­ing to mis­ter Holness , leave the damn keys.
This is a sig­nif­i­cant indi­ca­tor which I hope the Prime Minister and his new Administration will stick to with strict fidelity.

Shockingly but not out of char­ac­ter for the People’s National Party, out­go­ing Justice Minister Mark Golding’s claimed that the Prime Minister elect is being hyp­o­crit­i­cal and vin­dic­tive in bar­ring the sale of motor vehi­cles to out­go­ing PNP min­is­ters that were being used dur­ing their tenure.
This goes direct­ly to the sense of enti­tle­ment that the lead­er­ship of the PNP and the loads of polit­i­cal hacks and hang­ers on have regard­ing the pub­lic charge over which that admin­is­tra­tion was giv­en stewardship.
Even if Mark Golding is pissed about this, should­n’t he show some class and keep his damn mouth shut?
Truthfully speak­ing there has been a tra­di­tion of sell­ing off these vehi­cles to the Ministers who pre­vi­ous­ly had them assigned to them . However it is the right of the new Administration to change that pol­i­cy par­tic­u­lar­ly when the par­ty cam­paigned on tighter fis­cal responsibility.
What is it with these peo­ple that they do not under­stand that nei­ther tax-pay­ers prop­er­ty nor Jamaica belong to them?
Read also : PM DESIGNATE AND CABINET SHOULD BE GUIDED BY HUMILITY…

In respond­ing to Mark Golding’s infan­tile com­ments Member of Parliament elect for west­ern Portland Daryl Vaz said “The break­ing of this ‘cus­tom­ary prac­tice’ that even for­mer mem­bers of the last JLP Administration ben­e­fit­ed from in the past, is a direct sign of change, and that the new Andrew Holness-led Administration will not sub­scribe to cher­ished prac­tices that are not in the best inter­est of the econ­o­my and the peo­ple of Jamaica,”.
ThatThe par­ty of Mark Golding and Portia Simpson Miller, stacked with mas­sive amounts of polit­i­cal hacks dis­guised as Consultants and Advisers would miss the sig­nif­i­cance of this sub­stan­tive­ly and opti­cal­ly is no surprise.
As I wrote in a pre­vi­ous arti­cle the new Administration must do a com­pre­hen­sive audit of all the min­istries start­ing with the Prime Minister’s office to see where the pub­lic’s mon­ey was being leaked away to par­ty loyalists.

PARTY SUPPORTERS WILL PAY PART OF COST OF SWEARING IN CEREMONY

(2) Prime Minister des­ig­nate Andrew Holness is sched­uled to be sworn in on Thursday in a cer­e­mo­ny at King’s house .
General Secretary for The Jamaica Labour Party, Dr Horace Chang, says a sig­nif­i­cant amount of the expense, relat­ing to its leader, Andrew Holness Being sworn-in as Prime Minister, is being fund­ed by its sup­port­ers. “The par­ty is of the view, that the coun­try is still in an eco­nom­ic cri­sis, and as such, mon­ey can­not be spent unnec­es­sar­i­ly”, said Chang..

This medi­um wish­es to acknowl­edge these two events which serves as indi­ca­tors that the new Administration rec­og­nizes the need for a new direc­tion in fis­cal pol­i­cy and account­abil­i­ty. Hopefully this is the begin­ning of what will be a trend in the way the new Administration han­dles it’s pub­lic trust as it relates to stew­ard­ship of the nation’s scarce resources.
Furthermore I hope this will become a new tem­plate of account­abil­i­ty for future Administrations, not just vol­un­tar­i­ly but that this new direc­tion will ush­er in new laws which brings strict account­abil­i­ty to the dis­pen­sa­tion of pub­lic funds.
If polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion and patron­age is to be min­i­mized and erad­i­cat­ed the loop-holes with­in the sys­tem must be plugged. This will remove slush funds from the hands of politi­cians. This is one of the ways the dis­man­tling of Garrisons will become a reality.

This medi­um will be keep­ing a hawk-eye to ensure that this will not be just a ruse until the new Administration set­tles into office after which it will con­tin­ue busi­ness as usu­al. Something tells me Andrew Holness intends to be different.
Time will tell.

On Monday, 30 black students attending a Donald Trump rally at Valdosta State University in rural Georgia were forcefully ejected — simply for being black.

On Tuesday, in Louisville, Ky., what hap­pened to young black pro­test­ers at anoth­er Trump ral­ly wasn’t just racist — it appears to be out­right criminal.

While we have already wide­ly report­ed that white suprema­cists are open­ly pro­claim­ing that they are ful­ly embold­ened and ener­gized by Trump, the nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion of their romance with Trump is now on full display.

While Trump was giv­ing his typ­i­cal cam­paign speech about mak­ing America great again, sev­er­al dif­fer­ent pre­dom­i­nant­ly black groups of pro­test­ers, who were sim­ply there to hold up signs, began hav­ing those signs snatched and get­ting cursed by the white Trump sup­port­ers sur­round­ing them. We now know that those Trump sup­port­ers are open big­ots, Neo-Nazis, and white suprema­cists belong­ing to many dif­fer­ent groups includ­ing the Traditionalist Worker Party — a well-doc­u­ment­ed hate group. Their social media pro­files are full of Nazi pho­tos, KKK and white suprema­cist ref­er­ences, and some of the most insult­ing, despi­ca­ble hate speech you’ll ever see. KING: As vio­lence erupts at Super Tuesday Trump ral­ly, it’s only a mat­ter of time before some­one gets killed at future events 

The Law empowers Resident Magistrates to convene court on days which the court would not normally convene. That would be on weekends and public holidays, depending on the seriousness of the issues at hand. We have seen Resident Magistrate court convened to facilitate alleged drug dealers.
Will someone speak to my ignorance on this issue.

In a sit­u­a­tion in which the results of the elec­tions were so ambigu­ous that the Military had to place the National Reserve on readi­ness why could a Magistrate not be installed imme­di­ate­ly to over­sea the results of the seats in question ?
Why could sev­er­al state paid Resident Magistrates not be acti­vat­ed to attend to such a crit­i­cal issue regard­less of day or time ?
Why is the Saint Mary South East seat set to be count­ed today?
Why are the bal­lots in the Saint James Southern Magisterial recount set for next Monday?

Why are these mat­ters of National import treat­ed as periph­er­al issues when they are crit­i­cal to the integri­ty of the process and National security?
Lets hope that the new Administration under­stand the enor­mi­ty of the task it faces in the process of trans­form­ing the Psyche of the nation from a wannabe first world aspi­rant to one set on a decid­ed path toward that end.
There is absolute­ly no rea­son that two or three tax­pay­er paid Resident Magistrates could not be acti­vat­ed to get up off their back­sides to attend to this sim­ple task.
That one recount is sched­uled for next Monday defies all log­ic and can only serve to add to the neg­a­tive impact rumors have as a result of undue delays.
Lets get on with the damn task at hand and stop with the pussy-footing.

The task of Nation build­ing is far too impor­tant to be left up to the mind­set of the past which oper­ates on the stan­dards that we can take care of this tomor­row. Every minute is impor­tant .It is impor­tant that Jamaican lead­ers start think­ing with a 21^st cen­tu­ry mindset.

PRESS RELEASE – Political Leader of the Opposition United Workers’ Party, Allen Chastanet has sent con­grat­u­la­tions to Prime Minister-Elect Andrew Holness on his vic­to­ry at the polls on Thursday in Jamaica.

“The Jamaica Labour Party stuck to its task of offer­ing alter­na­tive poli­cies for the man­age­ment of Jamaica’s affairs and was able to win the con­fi­dence of Jamaicans,” said Chastanet.

“I extend best wish­es to Prime Minister Andrew Holness on behalf of the United Workers Party,” said Chastanet “and I wish him every suc­cess as he and his new­ly elect­ed Government work to build Jamaica into a stronger nation on a plat­form of eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty, dig­ni­ty and peace.”

- See more at: United Workers Party con­grat­u­lates the Jamaica Labor Party — See more at: http://​www​.stlu​cianew​son​line​.com/​u​n​i​t​e​d​-​w​o​r​k​e​r​s​-​p​a​r​t​y​-​c​o​n​g​r​a​t​u​l​a​t​e​s​-​t​h​e​-​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​-​l​a​b​o​r​-​p​a​r​t​y​/​#​s​t​h​a​s​h​.​x​T​c​l​s​o​Y​w​.​d​puf

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding says he is con­cerned about the low vot­er turnout in the 17^th General Election adding that Jamaicans should also be con­cerned. Thursday’s turnout of 47.7 per cent vot­ers was the low­est since uni­ver­sal adult suf­frage in 1944. Golding, speak­ing to reporters and edi­tors at the Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange, point­ed out that although the vot­er turnout is based on an inflat­ed vot­ers’ list which has not been re-ver­i­fied in about 10 years, it is a cause for con­cern. “I think all of us need to be con­cerned about the low lev­el of vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion,” Golding said.

“We have been trend­ing down over the last sev­er­al elec­tions, and it is cer­tain­ly nowhere near what obtains in oth­er Caribbean coun­tries,” he explained, adding that the vot­er turnout in Antigua and Barbuda is about 90 per cent. “It is wor­ri­some, because it com­pro­mis­es the legit­i­ma­cy of polit­i­cal author­i­ty in the coun­try, because polit­i­cal author­i­ty is based on an ascent of slight­ly more than the major­i­ty,” he con­tin­ued. According to avail­able data, the biggest vot­er turnout was 86.91 per cent in 1980, when the Edward Seaga-led Jamaica Labour Party boot­ed Michael Manley’s People’s National Party 51 – 9 after sev­er­al months of bit­ter cam­paign­ing that saw over 800 peo­ple die in polit­i­cal vio­lence. Read more here: Low vot­er turnout should con­cern Jamaicans – Bruce Golding

With fresh elections behind us Jamaicans once again largely stayed home . The Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) reported that even less voters turned up to vote on February 25^th than the last time around .
The question we must ask is this, “why have Jamaicans given up on the process”?
There is no simple answer to this complex question. Surely there are many far more sophisticated than I ever could hope to be who will be able to answer that question with far greater depth and clarity than I ever could.
However from a lay perspective it seem to me that people are tired and fed up , they believe their votes do not count and maybe more significantly they fundamentally believe the two major political parties are one and the same.

As a bystander I see how peo­ple could despair in light of what has tran­spired in our coun­try since the British ditched us in 1962.
Take the most recent elec­tions for exam­ple, even as Laborites and kum­reds danced in car­ni­val-like atmos­phere decked out in green and orange regalia the lead­er­ship of the PNP seem unable to accept the voice of the Jamaican people.

Former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and her par­ty seri­ous­ly takes the line that Jumeka a PNP kun­try to heart.
Since 2007 the griz­zled street war­rior Portia Simpson Miller has won one elec­tion but she also lost two as well , that has to sting.
Holding polit­i­cal office is not a right, it’s a priv­i­lege and an honor.
So those who offer them­selves as ser­vants of the peo­ple must divest them­selves of the notion that the pow­er is theirs to keep .
Alas , we do not live in a monar­chy where we are ruled by decree anymore.
Our lead­ers are not our mas­ters they are our ser­vants and they lead with our consent.

This is why it’s impor­tant that we have term lim­its , not just by way of the pow­er of the bal­lot box, but term lim­its enshrined in law which pre­vents politi­cians from get­ting too enam­ored with power.
It’s impor­tant that we elect young inno­v­a­tive lead­ers like Canada’s Justin Trudeau, who are in office to serve and not to lord over the peo­ple who place them in office while liv­ing like roy­al­ty off their sweat and blood.

What is it about polit­i­cal pow­er in our coun­try that makes it so dif­fi­cult to walk away with class after the vot­ers refuse to buy what indi­vid­ual par­ties are selling?
On September 3^rd 2007 the Jamaica Labor Party defeat­ed the Simpson Miller led PNP in a close elec­tion. Miller ini­tial­ly refused to con­cede defeat claim­ing vot­ing irregularities.
Notwithstanding the Organization of American States issued a state­ment declar­ing the elec­tion free and fair. “I believe this elec­tion can stand inter­na­tion­al scruti­ny,” said OAS assis­tant sec­re­tary-gen­er­al Albert Ramdin, who led a team of inter­na­tion­al observers who mon­i­tored the elec­tion. wikipedia
Instead she promised to be “Golding’s worst night­mare” , In our Parliamentary sys­tem of Government the oppo­si­tion par­ty can be vig­i­lant in watch­ing and report­ing to the peo­ple what the Governing par­ty is doing , but there is pre­cious lit­tle else the oppo­si­tion par­ty can do.
She con­ced­ed defeat on the 5^th of September.

On Thursday 25^th of February Portia Simpson Miller and her par­ty again went down in defeat albeit in anoth­er close loss.
It does not mat­ter how close the loss is or how wide it is the par­ty with most seats in the 63 seat leg­is­la­ture forms the gov­ern­ment that’s it.
Again Portia Simpson Miller gave a half-heart­ed con­ces­sion of sorts while vig­or­ous­ly promis­ing strong PNP func­tionar­ies to over­see recounts.
Additionally she went on to say she and her par­ty would not stand by and allow the par­ty just elect­ed to destroy the economy.
Excuse me ?
Jamaica’s econ­o­my does not belong to the PNP , how dare you? Who do you think you are?
That sense of enti­tle­ment caused her to spend her term in office being bla­tant­ly dis­re­spect­ful to the peo­ple who elect­ed her. To her sup­port­ers it does not mat­ter , but to the peo­ple who did not vote to put her in office this is an affront to their right to chose whom they want to gov­ern the Island for the next five years .
It is cer­tain­ly with­ing the rights of the PNP and the JLP to have recounts in con­stituen­cies where the mar­gins have been close .
That’s democ­ra­cy at work and in all fair­ness to KD Knight and Tom Tavares Finson they mere­ly want to ensure that the elec­tion results are fair.
I applaud both attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the two polit­i­cal parties.

However there is much more going on behind the scenes. Over the long peri­od of time that the PNP has been in office lit­er­al­ly every sec­tor of nation­al life has been politi­cized , much to the detri­ment of our country.
That includes those with a mega­phone in the media who have the gall to talk about the like­li­hood that the new Administration will not be able to gov­ern with a slim majority.
Here’s my advice for these bot­tom feed­ers , “shut the f**k up and allow the will of the peo­ple to be realized”.
If and when the peo­ple decide they want anoth­er change they have the right at the end of the new admin­is­tra­tion’s term to send them packing.
That is the way our sys­tem work.
Politics should not be a career, when it becomes a career it breeds con­tempt and arro­gance. This is not only about Miller , it runs the gamut on both sides of the divide. While we are at it I hope Holness will mar­shal leg­is­la­tion push­ing for term lim­its as he promised.

On that note I segue into answer­ing the ques­tion I raised “why have Jamaicans giv­en up on the process”?
GARRISONS.….
The Jamaican peo­ple in the mid­dle who are not died-in-the-wool Labourites or Kumreds are the ones who decide elec­tions. Many are frus­trat­ed and angry that there are con­stituen­cies which are stacked with vot­ers of one par­ty or the oth­er who vote mono­lith­ic nul­li­fy­ing their abil­i­ty to chose the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of their choice.
If Jamaica is to emerge from the shack­les of Political col­o­niza­tion these zones of exclu­sions must be dis­man­tled forthwith.
People’s votes must count .
We sim­ply can­not have a coun­try where the mass­es of the least informed make deci­sions for every­one else to the ben­e­fit of a few.

It’s remarkable to watch Marco Rubio the son of Cuban Immigrants stand in front of crowds berating immigrants as he tries to take down Donald Trump.
Here’s a guy whose parents ran away from Cuba and now he is running to be Gestapo in chief .

Marco Rubio told Reporters that the sit­ting President of the United States Barack Obama has no class. .
That real­ly piss­es me off.
Now Rubio is doing every­thing to gain trac­tion in the Republican Presidential nom­i­na­tion race in which he is yet to win a state .,
The new line of attack for Rubio is that Trump is a “Con Artist” . The fact is that even as Maraco Rubio attacks Trump label­ing him a con artist, Rubio expos­es him­self as a worse con-artist than Donald Trump .

POLITICAL HUSTLER…

Marco Rubio is a polit­i­cal hus­tler who has accom­plished much in his 45 years, no one can deny him that. The only prob­lem how­ev­er is that Rubio accom­plished every­thing for himself.
Ask Jeb Bush about that. Bush felt the bite of Marco Rubio the hus­tler when he jumped the line and helped to knock him out of the polit­i­cal race. Not that the Republican pri­ma­ry vot­ers had any stom­ach for anoth­er Bush, they just won’t say it.
Oh well they spoke loud­ly by walk­ing away from Jeb despite his huge war chest no one was inter­est­ed in hear­ing what poor Jeb had to say , so he went back home with his mommy.

Rubio took a beat-down from Chris Christie in what was a Kamikaze style mur­der sui­cide take-down . Now Christie is on the hus­tings cam­paign­ing for Trump and he has a sharp sword out for Rubio, clear­ly there is a lot of bad blood between those two .
The Republican estab­lish­ment wants Trump gone how­ev­er and they are pulling out all the stops to ensure that Trumps loco­mo­tive is derailed before he gets the nomination.
Why ?
Because the Republican par­ty estab­lish­ment cre­at­ed Donald Trump but now they want him gone. The par­ty is scared s***less that Donald Trump is poised to win the par­ty’s nomination.
They were ecsta­t­ic when Donald Trump was mak­ing an ass of him­self on FOX at the expense of the pres­i­dent. Now the chick­ens have come home to roost.
The prob­lem is not that they are afraid Trump will become President. The prob­lem is that they fear what the Democrats oppo­si­tion research will unearth on DonaldTrump once he becomes their nominee.
So the Rubio Cruz tag-team is designed to take Trump down.…… so they can all line up behind Marco Rubio.
Or at least that’s the plan .
There’s much at stake this elec­tion cycle as there are in all oth­er cycles . There’s the lit­tle issue of (1) Obama’s lega­cy and (2) the direc­tion the Supreme Court will take after the death of Antonin Scalia.
For the Constitution lov­ing Republicans the Constitution can take a back seat this time as Obama can­not be allowed to obey the Constitution. He must not be allowed to appoint a nom­i­nee to fill that vacancy.

Donald Trump labeled Rubio a light­weight, tru­ly Rubio has a glib tongue and absolute­ly no respect. Personally I have some oth­er names I could think of for the lit­tle non-iden­ti­ty Cuban but that’s for anoth­er time.
It says a lot about a per­son who comes from a cer­tain sit­u­a­tion, accom­plish­es his dream, or at least part of it,then dis­cards oth­ers by work­ing to kick away the ladder.
What if the Administration in pow­er had put his par­ents back on a boat and sent them back to Castro when they arrived in America? Where would Marco Rubio be?
Chances are he would be cut­ting sug­ar-cane in the Cuban countryside.
Marco Rubio is worse than a light­weight, he is a snivel­ing lit­tle social climber.

The fact is that Marco Rubio has not won a sin­gle state thus far and now Chris Christie has endorsed Trump and is active­ly cam­paign­ing for trump. In an unprece­dent­ed move Christie is now on stage run­ning pass-pro­tec­tion for Donald Trump.
Ever the con­niv­ing strate­gist Chris Christie is look­ing to be Vice President Chris Christie, or at least Attorney General Chris Christie.

Republicans were gid­dy when Donald Trump antag­o­nized Barack Obama with racist birther com­ments and demands .
To a man they said it’s not their job to cor­rect Donald Trump or any­one else who had neg­a­tive and racist things to say about the Nations first black president.
They had no prob­lem when he labeled all Mexicans ” rapists mur­der­ers and drug-deal­ers”. There were no out­rage when he char­ac­ter­ized Blacks as lazy deserv­ing of being shipped back to Africa.
They glee­ful­ly cel­e­brat­ed when he talked about build­ing walls and mak­ing Mexico pay for it, until Vicente Fox snapped back of course.
They rejoiced as he unleashed a xeno­pho­bic , Islamophobic rant against the Muslim com­mu­ni­ty , demand­ing that they not be allowed into the coun­try until the coun­try can fig­ure out whats going on.
Whatever that means.

They fig­ured that like a gas fire Donald Trump would burn him­self out leav­ing an estab­lish­ment can­di­date they could ral­ly around.
Not so, they missed the gas hose feed­ing the flames of Trump’s insur­gency. That gas hose is a 30% to a 40% of large­ly white peo­ple who exact­ly shares Trump’s vile views. To these peo­ple Donald Trump is not a can­di­date he is a megaphone.
Trump was exact­ly right when he said he could fire a gun down 5^th avenue and he would­n’t lose any votes. Of course not they don’t care about any­thing he does or says , he is sim­ply an instru­ment through which they are air­ing their grievances.
Yeah they want to make America white again , oops I meant great again.

Now no one is laugh­ing any­more, this is seri­ous s**t.
So the plan is to gas Rubio up. They don’t care too much about Ted Cruz who has no per­son­al­i­ty, the guy has the appeal of a Rhinoceros .
In fact they are not sure about Cruz’s can­di­da­cy they believe Hillary will chal­lenge Cruz’s legit­i­ma­cy to run for the Presidency were he to become their nominee.
Ted Cruz who was born in Canada gave up his Canadian cit­i­zen­ship less than two years ago because he intend­ed to run for the pres­i­den­cy of the United States, which leaves the robot­ic Rubio.

Incredibly the Republicans field­ed sev­en­teen can­di­dates and this is whats left. !!!

As the Post election autopsy begins in earnest both the victorious JLP and the vanquished PNP will have time to think about who hold the power in our country . (The Jamaican people.)
This period of reflection must begin with the People’s National Party.

TIME OF REST AND RE-ENERGIZING FOR THE PNP

This ought to be a peri­od of reflec­tion for the par­ty of Norman Washington Manley one of the found­ing fathers of our young Nation . The Party must decide whether it wants to con­tin­ue on a path of failed social­ist ideas, long dis­card by many of the for­mer lead­ing spon­sors of that polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy. This is not to say that the par­ty should turn it’s back on it’s core prin­ci­ples of demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ism. I am just not sure what clenched fists and Che Guevara berets have to do with a polit­i­cal par­ty of the 21^st cen­tu­ry in a coun­try which is large­ly a con­ser­v­a­tive nation? In the same breath we must rec­og­nize the per­son­al accom­plish­ments of Portia Simpson Miller. She climbed from the streets to sit at the pin­na­cle of polit­i­cal pow­er. That is no easy task . As we go forth into the 21^st cen­tu­ry it is only appro­pri­ate that we do so with fresh lead­er­ship and new ideas. It is time that the People’s National par­ty re-cal­i­brate, reori­ent and re-ener­gize for the good of our country.

TIME OF HUMILITY FOR JLP

It should nev­er elude the Jamaica Labor Party that this is not a time for gloat­ing, arro­gance or self con­grat­u­la­tion. This is the peo­ple’s vic­to­ry not a par­ty vic­to­ry, the soon­er the par­ty rec­og­nizes this the better.
This is a vic­to­ry by boss­es who refused to be told by their employ­ee “I won’t talk my way out of your employ, so I refuse to answer any of your ques­tions”.
This a vic­to­ry by a peo­ple who were told they will final­ly receive a break from the oner­ous tax­a­tion which con­tin­ue to break the back of their abil­i­ty to feed their families.
This is a vic­to­ry of a peo­ple who are tired of tight­en­ing their belts with no end in sight while their ser­vants live the lives of emper­ors and Kings at their expense.
This a vic­to­ry by a peo­ple fed up and tired of being ripped off in scan­dal after scan­dal, Outameni, Finsac, Trafigura, and a litany of others.
This is the vic­to­ry of a an aggriev­ed peo­ple who grew tired of a leader who tells them to go talk to the PNP even though she heads the party.
This a vic­to­ry for a peo­ple tired of being abused.

As Andrew Holness said after win­ning last night “the par­ty is mere­ly entrust­ed with stew­ard­ship” .
Let this be know to each and every mem­ber of the Party’s hier­ar­chy , check your egos and sense of enti­tle­ment at the door or this will be a very short cel­e­bra­tion before things turn sour. The ardu­ous task begins now.
That of trans­form­ing the mind­set of many mis­led into believ­ing gov­ern­ment is sup­posed to be their bene­fac­tor. “Anything a any­thing”. No respect for our laws. Doing what­ev­er they please.
The process of trans­form­ing the nation from pover­ty to pros­per­i­ty will require that the peo­ple are brought along as equal partners.
This will be no easy task.
So let us enjoy this new begin­ning as we pon­der the enor­mi­ty of the task at hand , tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion that for the last 44 years the JLP has only held office for 12 of those years.
There is exten­sive work to be done in terms of mobi­liz­ing the peo­ple imme­di­ate­ly. This can be accom­plished by uti­liz­ing this fresh polit­i­cal cap­i­tal the par­ty just earned.
Every area of the pub­lic sec­tor should now be giv­en an exten­sive audit in order to prop­er­ly account to the Jamaican peo­ple how their tax­es were being spent as well as to elim­i­nate inefficiency.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE :HOLNESS’ INVITATION TO WALK THE GARRISONS.

One of the things Andrew Holness bemoaned about Portia Simpson Miller was that she refused to walk the Garrisons with him as a sym­bol­ic sign that both polit­i­cal par­ties were com­mit­ted to the destruc­tion of Political garrisons.
Unfortunately for her lega­cy and the coun­try Miller refused claim­ing the PNP had no Garrisons and more dis­turbing­ly that she saw no walls in her con­stituen­cy. A point which sug­gest walls are a nec­es­sary com­po­nent of a garrison.
Understandably, Mrs Miller failed or chose to ignore the psy­cho­log­i­cal impli­ca­tions of polit­i­cal sub­servience and dependency.

.
Once sworn in Andrew Holness has an oppor­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate that he was seri­ous about erad­i­cat­ing gar­risons from the Jamaican polit­i­cal culture.
It is impor­tant that Mister Holness be mind­ful of the fact that he won a nar­row vic­to­ry sweep­ing all of the seats not cat­e­go­rized as gar­ri­son seats.
Arguably his mar­gin of vic­to­ry could have been much larg­er if those seats weren’t gar­ri­son constituencies.
Conversely if the PNP had more gar­risons he would today be on the out­side look­ing in. On that basis it is impor­tant that he end the Garrison cul­ture as a top pri­or­i­ty of his administration.

SEE ALSO : WHY PORTIA CANNOT RELENQUISH GARRISON.

Whatever the prime Minister des­ig­nate con­tem­plate , it is impor­tant that he keep the promis­es he made .
I am con­fi­dent that he has gone through the nuances and the minu­tia of enact­ing the par­ty’s sig­na­ture 10 point plan.
As I said before, be kind to the peo­ple as you were when you were campaigning.
The par­ty’s agen­da of mov­ing from pover­ty to pros­per­i­ty can­not become a real­i­ty in the chaos of filthy con­gest­ed streets , zinc fence and ven­dors occu­py­ing major thoroughfares.
It is impor­tant that on day one the new admin­is­tra­tion estab­lish­es that it will be an admin­is­tra­tion that is hum­ble and sub­ject to the rule of law.
People are not opposed to the rule of law, they want to know that the laws apply equal­ly to every­one, regard­less of their sta­tion in society.
It is impor­tant that if ven­dors are to be relo­cat­ed there is dia­logue and alter­na­tive accom­mo­da­tions worked out where feasible.
The optics of heav­i­ly armed police and work­ers with bull­doz­ers evict­ing strug­gling ven­dors is nev­er good politically.
The new Administration will be well served to remem­ber these lit­tle nuggets.

After Andrew Holness sought his own mandate from the Jamaican people and was told no in 2011, I wrote an article in which I suggested that though a loss stung it was not the end of the road.
JLP MUST SNATCH VICTORY FROM THE ASHES OF DEFEAT:

The events which lead up to the secu­ri­ty forces assault on Tivoli Gardens and issues relat­ed to then Prime Minister Bruce Golding soured the Jamaican peo­ple on the JLP.
It was not sur­pris­ing that they would return the tired jad­ed out of ideas PNP to office after an unprece­dent­ed 14 ¹⁄₂ years in office and a mere four year break.
Like a con­tused wound which need­ed lanc­ing the JLP need­ed to be away from Governance, the Jamaican peo­ple made the cor­rect deci­sion in remov­ing the par­ty from office.

I sug­gest­ed then that if Andrew Holness want­ed to lead the JLP or more impor­tant­ly lead the proud Jamaican peo­ple he would have to earn that honor.
He would have to get into the trench­es , in the crevass­es , the hills and gul­lies , the byways and ham­lets of Jamaica where he would meet the real­ly great peo­ple of Jamaica.
The real­ly great peo­ple I met when I was a young police offi­cer and was sent all over the Island into these small ham­lets and coves where the best Jamaicans reside.
I opined that if he did that and endeared him­self to the peo­ple he would be unbeatable.

Say what you want about Portia Simpson Miller but she suc­ceed where many so-called intel­lects have failed because she endeared her­self to the com­mon man.
I said then Andrew Holness must do the same or he will nev­er ever enter Gordon House as Prime Minister.
Unfortunately for Portia Simpson Miller on February 25^th 2016 she was sent pack­ing because after she was elect­ed she decid­ed to stop talk­ing to the people.Not talk­ing to the Press is not talk­ing to the people.

She refused to address gross cor­rup­tion and incom­pe­tence in her admin­is­tra­tion. She refused to debate the oppo­si­tion as was cus­tom­ary at elec­tion time of late. The peo­ple got a gen­er­al sense she was being disrespectful.
Portia got away from her win­ning ways.
Whether it was the refusal to debate or the fix­a­tion with Holness’s house, or whether it was Labor’s 10 point plan I will leave that for the polit­i­cal pathologists.
In the end she did almost the very same thing she did when she was nar­row­ly beat­en by Golding in 2007. She did­n’t exact­ly promise to be any­one’s worst night­mare but her speech was less than con­grat­u­la­to­ry or magnanimous.
Once again she missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to be gra­cious . It is prob­a­bly safe to say she will nev­er be Prime Minister ever again , I can see the knives out at her back as the Peter Phillips and oth­ers line up to take her out like Brutus did Caesar.
Portia lost the elec­tion and also failed in her speech to give thought to her legacy.

Over the years one of the labels which stuck to the JLP is that the par­ty is a par­ty for the rich.
It was the far­thest thing from the truth but the PNP was so open­ly hos­tile to the rich or well-off that the mass­es nat­u­ral­ly default­ed to the notion that the Labor Party must be filled with rich peo­ple and there­fore the par­ty was not for them.
That was nev­er the case as I have stat­ed over and over again. The Jamaica Labor Party was start­ed as a work­ing man’s par­ty by the ulti­mate hus­tler and busi­ness­man turned Trade Unionist Alexander Bustamante.
It was Bustamante who spent near­ly two years of his life locked up by the British Authorities for stand­ing up for work­ers rights. It was appalling to see the Government of Simpson Miller pay homage to Norman Manley refer­ring to him as the father of the Nation with­out giv­ing respect to Bustamante or even men­tion­ing Sir Alexander’s name.
JLP DID A POOR JOB OF MAXIMIZING BUSTAMANTE’S CONTRIBUTION : PNP MAXED OUT MANLEY’S…

JLP WIN BIRTHDAY PRSENT FOR BUSTAMANTE , VINDICATION FOR SEAGA

This win was a great birth­day present for Bustamante whose birth­day the nation cel­e­brat­ed on February 24^th .
A day lat­er would have been quite okay by the Chief.
On elec­tion day I called a few of my friends in Jamaica most­ly Police offi­cers work­ing the streets with a view to get­ting a feel for the pulse of the day’s happening.
I spoke to a female sub-offi­cer who is a sup­port­er of the PNP. I asked her why not vote for a change? She explained to me with­out anger , or ran­cor that mem­bers of the JLP were too arro­gant and disrespectful.
This com­ing from a senior police offi­cer who have giv­en years of ser­vice to her country.
This is some­thing I have writ­ten about exten­sive­ly myself , the sense of Elitism and rude­ness some mem­bers of the JLP has shown toward oth­er peo­ple must no longer be tolerated.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​h​o​l​n​e​s​s​-​s​h​o​u​l​d​-​g​i​v​e​-​g​a​m​m​o​n​-​a​-​t​a​l​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​-​m​a​y​b​e​-​s​h​o​w​-​h​i​m​-​t​h​e​-​d​o​or/

This is a new day for Jamaica, let this be a day of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. Let Laborites and com­rades come togeth­er as Jamaicans and start on the path of build­ing our great coun­try to be what she can be . Let us put the green back into our flag and nev­er again allow low-class polit­i­cal hus­tlers to deface our nation­al sym­bols and trea­sures even as they are en-robed in the vile cloth of dubi­ous power.

Let us restore civil­i­ty to our coun­try. Let us be revered and respect­ed in the Caribbean and the world again. Let every­one want to come to our coun­try again instead of every­one lin­ing up to leave. Let us tear down the imag­i­nary walls of polit­i­cal exclu­sions so that res­i­dents all, PNP and JLP can expe­ri­ence the cool winds of free­dom , change and pros­per­i­ty. Let us offer hope and promise to our young peo­ple as we make it pos­si­ble for them to put away guns and pick up lap­top com­put­ers , pens and oth­er tools of use­ful trade.
Let us not return to the pol­i­tics of dependency,envy and hate but let us aspire to a future where our young peo­ple can dream of being great right there in their own country.

Let us begin the task of rebuild­ing on the con­cept that Government can not and will not make peo­ple rich but that Government will begin the task of remov­ing the bar­ri­ers so that peo­ple can make them­selves and their chil­dren rich.
This is a new begin­ning for the Jamaican people.
It is a new oppor­tu­ni­ty for the Labor Party to recon­nect and re-engage the Jamaican people.
Let us not waste this oppor­tu­ni­ty. Let us do what we said we would do .
Let us begin the task now.
I am proud of you Jamaica.….….……

Today Jamaicans go to the polls to chose a series of constituent electors representing the two major political parties ‚the people’s National Party(PNP) and the Jamaica Labor Party(JLP).
Later this evening one of the two political parties will be elected to govern the country for the next five (5) years.

At stake is the future of of 2.8 mil­lion peo­ple and a nation whose stan­dard of liv­ing has dete­ri­o­rat­ed dras­ti­cal­ly over the last sev­er­al decades. The par­ty in pow­er the PNP has held office for 32 of the last 44 years. There has been twelve years of JLP rule since 1972 and 2016, these two JLP Administrations were between 1980 and 1988 and 2007 and 2011.
It is fair to say that Jamaica has been shaped large­ly by the PNP eco­nom­i­cal­ly , cul­tur­al­ly , and infra-structurally.
Or not!
Depending on whether you believe that the decay Jamaica has expe­ri­enced in a sys­tem­at­ic way is attrib­ut­able to the PNP’s gross mis­man­age­ment of our country.
Or not.

The Jamaican elec­torate will have anoth­er shot at res­cu­ing their own lives and the future of their chil­dren from a cesspool of cor­rup­tion, Don-cul­ture, finan­cial mis­man­age­ment and thiev­ery, a dis­re­spect for the Island’s nation­al trea­sures and a host of oth­er malfea­sance, many of which would have land­ed the per­pe­tra­tors in prison in a coun­try of laws.
Today Jamaicans get to decide whether they want to con­tin­ue to be shunned by oth­er CARICOM nations.
Today Jamaicans get to decide whether they want the num­ber one for­eign exchange earn­er (tourism) to con­tin­ue to be so, even though the aver­age per­son hard­ly ben­e­fit from it
Today Jamaicans get to decide whether they want to con­tin­ue to have remit­tance as the coun­try’s num­ber two for­eign exchange earn­er. Meaning that our Nation is a depen­dent beg­gar nation.

Today Jamaicans get to decide whether it want to embark on a refresh­ing new path toward a mar­ket dri­ven econ­o­my or it wants to remain on a path of failed ide­o­log­i­cal social­ism long dis­card­ed by smarter nations.
Venezuela is reel­ing from the effects of ide­o­log­i­cal social­ism even though it is an oil rich nation. Supermarket shelves are emp­ty , med­i­cines in short sup­ply and no vac­cine to pre­vent the metas­ta­siz­ing of killer diseases.

These are all prob­lems which Jamaicans will, have to grap­ple with and then some.
Later today we will all know what the peo­ple decide .
One thing is cer­tain whichev­er way they vote they will have to live with the consequences.

On the occa­sion that there was gun­fire at the JLP ral­ly in Sam Sharpe square Montego Bay I tried to direct atten­tion to the fact that the inci­dent high­light­ed the inep­ti­tude of the police above all else.
RALLY’S SHOOTING EXPOSES WEAKNESS IN ABILITY OF POLICE TO PROVIDE REAL SECURITY.
At the time of the arti­cle there was vis­cer­al push-back from many ex-police offi­cers who argued stri­dent­ly that the police can do lit­tle at polit­i­cal ral­lies. Those shock­ing com­ments remind­ed me large­ly of my very first day of police ser­vice at the Constant Spring CIB when I walked into a tai­lor shop on the Coptic build­ing at the cor­ner of Barbican and Grant’s Pen Roads and arrest­ed a man sit­ting in the shop with a revolver secret­ly tucked into his waistband.
I had no idea who he was at the time of the col­lar but imme­di­ate­ly I entered the estab­lish­ment I real­ized the man did not belong around that sewing machine.

Back at the CIB office all of the detec­tives were in an uproar that they were look­ing for the man “ChickenToe” for months.
Chicken Toe received 2 years hard labor in prison for ille­gal­ly hav­ing that weapon. I will nev­er for­get that my first arrest, on my first day at the CIB was for remov­ing an ille­gal weapon from the streets.
Chicken Toe came to see me imme­di­ate­ly after he was released from prison, he thanked me for not killing him and for treat­ing him fair­ly even though he had a weapon.
I learned then that in the Jamaican police con­text look­ing for some­one meant , look­ing for the sus­pect to drop from the sky.

I was not sur­prised at the response of my esteemed for­mer col­leagues when I crit­i­cized the police for not hav­ing a plan which would ade­quate­ly enforce the laws regard­less of the size of the crowds. In fact I seri­ous­ly doubt whether they had a plan on paper peri­od. The police plan is and has always been to sim­ply send some bodies.
It is incom­pre­hen­si­ble that any­one would argue that based on the enor­mi­ty of the crowd the police should only show up as win­dow dress­ing but not as a force to ensure that the nation’s laws are enforced and lives secured.
Despite my cha­grin this is exact­ly how Jamaican police offi­cers are being schooled.
Simply show up.
My argu­ments were strate­gi­cal­ly laid out on a point by point basis, not just hol­low words but detailed specifics on exact­ly how it could have been accomplished.
At the cen­ter of my con­tention was the fact that peo­ple could be shot with hun­dreds of police offi­cers at the scene and no one is apprehended.
It came as no sur­prise then that the PNP meet­ing could also expe­ri­ence a shoot­ing and no one is held accountable.

Without bela­bor­ing the obvi­ous I must also speak to the non­sen­si­cal notion that based on crowd size police are pow­er­less to do their jobs.
It is under­stood that after the shoot­ing at the meet­ing in which the Prime Minister was on scene there was a stam­pede, as a result sev­er­al per­sons includ­ing chil­dren were tram­pled and had to be hospitalized .
These are exact­ly the kinds of things which occur when large groups of peo­ple are lumped togeth­er. The more peo­ple there are the greater the pos­si­bil­i­ty some­thing will happen,(something neg­a­tive will jump off).
These are the very issues I speak to regard­ing the JCF . The Agency demon­stra­bly is unable to learn any­thing from events of the past.
It is out­ra­geous that in a mat­ter of days two shoot­ings could occur at events in which the heads of the two polit­i­cal par­ties were in atten­dance and no arrest has been made.
I won’t even both­er speak­ing to the stance demeanor and tac­tics of those charged specif­i­cal­ly with the polit­i­cal lead­ers protection.
Jamaica’s polit­i­cal lead­ers should be eter­nal­ly grate­ful that peo­ple will kill each oth­er over pol­i­tics but will not lift a fin­ger to harm them.

The idea that this lev­el of medi­oc­rity can be explained away with­in the con­text of crowd size may make sense to a group of secu­ri­ty guards but cer­tain­ly not to a police depart­ment wor­thy of respect.
The police depart­ment projects a sub­stan­tial amount of form and not much more. I make no apolo­gies for crit­i­ciz­ing a police force which has mur­der com­mit­ted in it’s pres­ence yet is unable to make an arrest.
Incredibly the Police force still con­tin­ue to oper­ate as a bunch of night-watch­men even as we are well into the 21^st century.

It is with­in the con­text of the inep­ti­tude of the police depart­ment and it’s inabil­i­ty to trans­form itself that the Prime Minister’s state­ments take on sin­is­ter resonance.
Speaking imme­di­ate­ly after the inci­dent the Prime Minister vowed to find out who was involved . Her inflamed rhetoric was the oppo­site of that of the Leader of the oppo­si­tion in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion at Sam Sharpe Square.
Even though the Prime Minister had no idea who was involved in the shoot­ing , she was inex­plic­a­bly able to say specif­i­cal­ly why the shooter/​s did what they did.
If the Police had no idea who did the shoot­ings which occurred while they were present, how exact­ly will they find out after the fact?
Which Means Portia will have to get her infor­ma­tion from the streets .
If and when she gets the infor­ma­tion as this writer is sure she will , what will she do with that information?
Will that infor­ma­tion be passed on to the inept police or will Porsha’s street his­to­ry dic­tate the final outcome?

UPDATE

Since this sto­ry broke a Dr, who treat­ed many of the injured who turned up at Hospital, stat­ed that none of the wounds of the injured were con­sis­tent with gunshot.
Regardless , there are con­firmed reports con­clu­sive­ly indi­cate that indeed shots were fired which pre­cip­i­tat­ed the stampede.
To date no one has been arrest­ed for fir­ing guns or any oth­er crimes asso­ci­at­ed with this event.

ST ANDREW, Jamaica — People’s National Party (PNP) pres­i­dent Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller last night said she was pre­pared to die with Comrades fol­low­ing a shoot­ing inci­dent at a PNP ral­ly in St Andrew.

Gunshots rang out at the Portia Simpson Miller Square min­utes before the prime min­is­ter addressed the mas­sive crowd gath­ered for the par­ty’s final meet­ing ahead of General Elections tomorrow.

“I was watch­ing care­ful­ly, because the thing that came to me is the pro­tec­tion of the peo­ple stand­ing in front of me.

I would have to go down with the peo­ple here. 

She said she was con­fi­dent that the police would brief her on the cause of the inci­dent as soon as they com­plete inves­ti­ga­tions into the matter.

At the same time, the prime min­is­ter, when asked if she feared a repeat of the vio­lent 1980 General Election said: “[This was] no way near there. I don’t think so and the per­son who did it is either crazy, was paid or sent and took a very seri­ous chance tonight.”

“The only thing on my mind now, is all the per­sons that came to this meet­ing will get home safe­ly,” she added, after refus­ing to leave the scene of the incident.

“I’ve often called for a peace­ful cam­paign, no intim­i­da­tion and as Jamaicans we should live togeth­er in peace and love,” said Simpson Miller.

She lat­er vis­it­ed those who were injured dur­ing the stam­pede which ensued after gun­shots rang out.

In the mean­time, Senior Medical Officer at the Kingston Public Hospital Dr Natalie Whylie con­firmed that 37 peo­ple, includ­ing two chil­dren, were injured. Three peo­ple were admit­ted in sta­ble con­di­tion, one of whom under­went surgery after being shot in the back.

Whylie said two emer­gency posts were set up at the ral­ly by the Ministry of Health and that respons­es to those injured were timely.

The police said details sur­round­ing the cause of inci­dent are still unclear at this time. Read more here : #DecisionJa2016: I am pre­pared to die with you, Portia tells Comrades