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 

“He’s an ‘African’ American. He was, you know, raised white,” said the world-renowned neurosurgeon, whose single mother worked three jobs – and occasionally relied on government aid – to elevate Carson and his older brother from the grinding poverty of ghetto life. “I mean, like most Americans, I was proud that we broke the color barrier when he was elected, but … he didn’t grow up like I grew up … Many of his formative years were spent in Indonesia. So, for him to, you know, claim that, you know, he identifies with the experience of black Americans, I think, is a bit of a stretch.”

WOW !!!
If some­one asked what was the for­mu­la for destroy­ing one’s own lega­cy I would point to Ben Carson the once famed Nuero Surgeon as the per­fect template.
This could eas­i­ly be taught as a College course … How to destroy one’s own legacy.
So lets have a lit­tle fun with Dr.Carson’s statement.
Quote : “I mean, like most Americans, I was proud that we broke the col­or bar­ri­er when he was elect­ed, but.…
Okay so Carson was proud to latch onto the suc­cess of Barack Obama and was­n’t ashamed to take cred­it for Obama’s black­ness then. He cer­tain­ly has not turned Black since win­ning the White House , Carson can­not claim he did­n’t know Obama was Black.
Quote: He didn’t grow up like I grew up … Many of his for­ma­tive years were spent in Indonesia. So, for him to, you know, claim that, you know, he iden­ti­fies with the expe­ri­ence of black Americans, I think, is a bit of a stretch.” !

Okay this is where Ben Carson’s igno­rance shows . This is where his dirty draw­ers start­ed to show for all the world to see, that being a world renowned neu­ro-sur­geon does­n’t mean an intellectual.
By Carson’s rea­son­ing one has to have been born and raised in the ghet­to of America’s cities to first qual­i­fy as (1) Black enough) and (2) be able to under­stand what it means to be black in America.
It is the great­est load of cocka­mamie I have seen in a long time.
In the first instance there is a huge sub-set with­in the African-American com­mu­ni­ty which has no idea about what it means to be black out­side of the con­sis­tent desire to be victims.

Blackness is nev­er and was nev­er defined by American-blacks . Being black has noth­ing to do with geog­ra­phy. In fact it was our black­ness which caused us to be lumped into ships and cart­ed into the west­ern world in the first instance, long before Ben Carson and his kind could begin to be per­pet­u­al vic­tims we were black.
If Ben Carson is say­ing that in order that one can be tru­ly black that per­son has to squan­der his/​her entire life away in that same ghet­to is non­sen­si­cal and lame .
After Barack Obama grad­u­at­ed from Harvard he could have gone on to a lucra­tive career in the pri­vate sec­tor , instead he went to the south side of Chicago and became a com­mu­ni­ty organizer.
This placed Obama in the unique posi­tion to feel the pulse of the ghet­to in ways Ben Carson has­n’t. Ben Carson’s claim to being Black is about attempt­ing to stab some­one. If that is what Carson means about iden­ti­fy­ing with the expe­ri­ences of black America I am immense­ly proud that the 44^th President did not par­tic­i­pate in the stereo­typ­i­cal car­i­ca­ture his detrac­tors have of him.

It’s remark­able that Dr, Carson who has the pro­to­type on Blackness has­n’t yet fig­ured out that his 15 min­utes of polit­i­cal fame came at the expense of President Obama .
It’s iron­ic that even though Dr, Carson has accom­plished so much aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly and in his career, pri­or to his for­ay into pol­i­tics the major­i­ty of peo­ple in the Black Community would have no idea who he was.
Ben Carson 15 min­utes of fame came not because of his exem­plary and stel­lar edu­ca­tion but because of the non­sen­si­cal things he said about the Affordable Care Act referred to pejo­ra­tive­ly as (Obama care).
Carson said the Affordable Care Act was worse than Slavery. You can’t make up that kind of idio­cy. Barack Obama accom­plished what sev­er­al Presidents before him want­ed but could not accomplish.
By his com­ments Ben Carson unwit­ting­ly and igno­rant­ly dimin­ish­es the hor­rors of over four hun­dred years of slav­ery and oppres­sion and shows that to some degree you can get some Negroes out of the ghet­to but you can nev­er get the ghet­to out of some Negroes.
Interestingly for Carson he received fund­ing because he was will­ing to tear down the nation’s first black pres­i­dent how­ev­er the very same hate-filled com­ments will bury his can­di­da­cy once and for all.

The only per­son who did not receive the memo that repub­li­cans would not nom­i­nate a black man as their nom­i­nee was Ben Carson , his friends like Armstrong Williams and the likes of Clarence Thomas.
Referencing Progressives Carson said: “They assume because you’re black, you have to think a cer­tain way,” . “And if you don’t think that way, you’re ‘Uncle Tom,’ you’re wor­thy of every hor­ri­ble epi­thet they can come up with; where­as, if I weren’t black, then I would just be a Republican.”
No Dr. Carson you chose to be an Uncle Tom all by yourself.
Being a Black Republican is a path to nowhere-land.
It’s the same as going in an East-Westerly direction[sic]
Your polit­i­cal stance will be a huge Albatross around the neck of what would have been a stel­lar lega­cy, because you could not be hap­py for anoth­er brother.
Shame on you!!!

THE February 25 General Election will come down to 14 mar­gin­al seats, which a new poll con­duct­ed by Trinidad- based polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Derek Ramsamooj shows is lean­ing towards the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

According to Ramsamooj, the pri­vate­ly com­mis­sioned poll con­duct­ed between nom­i­na­tion day (February 9) and the past week­end, before the JLP-and the gov­ern­ing People’s National Party (PNP)-hosted major ral­lies in Half-Way-Tree and Montego Bay, respec­tive­ly, found that 51.76 per cent of elec­tors in these mar­gin­al seats would vote for the JLP and 48.24 per cent for the PNP.

“The polit­i­cal momen­tum at this point is lean­ing favourably towards the JLP form­ing the next Government. However, the win­ning of an elec­tion is based on the resources — finan­cial and human — and the [effec­tive­ness] of the elec­tion machin­ery [on elec­tion day],” said Ramsamooj.

He warned, how­ev­er, that any “unfore­seen error” by either of the polit­i­cal par­ties in the next 48 hours will be a polit­i­cal dis­as­ter. Ramsamooj said he and his team inter­viewed 1,859 peo­ple for the poll, which has a mar­gin of error of plus or minus four per cent.
“It has a 95 per cent con­fi­dence lev­el,” Ramsamooj told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

He said that when Jamaicans were asked who would make a bet­ter prime min­is­ter, 53.47 per cent said JLP Leader Andrew Holness and 46.53 per cent Portia Simpson Miller, the pres­i­dent of the PNP and cur­rent prime minister.

At the same time, when asked if Prime Minister Simpson Miller deserves anoth­er term, 52.02 per cent said ‘no’ and 41.41 per cent said ‘yes’.

Some 6.51 per cent, he said, respond­ed that they did not know. Asked what fac­tors would influ­ence them to vote, 74.44 per cent of respon­dents said lead­er­ship; 71.37 per cent the com­pe­tence of can­di­dates; 69.74 per cent nation­al issues; and 61.30 per cent loy­al­ty to party.

The con­stituen­cies (mar­gin­al seats) in which the poll was con­duct­ed were:

• St James Central;

• St James West Central;

• St Mary Western;

• St Mary South Eastern;

• St Andrew East Rural;

• St Andrew West Rural;

• Hanover Eastern;

• St Andrew Eastern;

• St Thomas Eastern;

• St Ann North Western;

• St Catherine East Central;

• St Elizabeth South Eastern; and

• St Elizabeth South West.

“No polling was done in the hard­core PNP and JLP con­stituen­cies,” Ramsamooj said, mak­ing it clear that it was not a nation­al poll.

According to Ramsamooj, when asked what they expect­ed in ²⁰¹⁶⁄₁₇ if the PNP remained in office, 66.91 per cent of respon­dents in the mar­gin­al seats said ris­ing unem­ploy­ment; 77.70 per cent ris­ing tax­es; and 69.32 per cent an increase in crime.

At the same time, when asked what are the most urgent issues that need to be tack­led now, 85.65 per cent said unem­ploy­ment was the most impor­tant; 77.23 per cent iden­ti­fied pover­ty as the sec­ond most impor­tant; 71.79 per cent said prob­lems fac­ing the youth; 75.89 per cent edu­ca­tion issues; and 73.58 per cent said cost of living.

At the same time, Ramsamooj said when respon­dents were asked what was the most urgent polit­i­cal prob­lem that need­ed to be addressed in Jamaica, 72.28 per cent said con­sti­tu­tion­al reform; 70.24 per cent bet­ter gov­er­nance and deal­ing with pub­lic financ­ing; 69.86 per cent dis­hon­esty in pol­i­tics; and 68.29 per cent cor­rup­tion in the polit­i­cal system.

According to the Ramsamooj poll, 62.03 per cent of respon­dents said ‘yes’ when asked: “Do you think the Government was able to pass the IMF tests at the expense of the cit­i­zens of Jamaica?”

Another 21.14 per cent said ‘no,’ and 12.84 per cent said they did not know. Respondents were also asked if they agreed or dis­agreed with the slo­gans of the par­ties — the PNP’s ‘Step up the Progress’ and the JLP’s ‘From Poverty to Prosperity’.

Some 53.47 per cent agreed with the PNP’s slo­gan, against 46.53 per cent who dis­agreed. On the oth­er hand, 62.27 per cent were in agree­ment with the JLP’s slo­gan, and 37.73 per cent in disagreement.

The JLP, mean­while, had 80.70 per cent of respon­dents endors­ing its growth agen­da as part of its job cre­ation plan; 77.71 per cent endorsed its planned cre­ation of a Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation; and 75.64 per cent backed its National Apprenticeship Programme.

“Both the PNP and the JLP have been able to moti­vate and mobilise core sup­port­ers, and both have demon­strat­ed that they have been able to bring out their sup­port base as a method of test­ing and review­ing their elec­tion day machin­ery,” Ramsamooj told the Observer yesterday.

However, he said that what is crit­i­cal is the polit­i­cal appeal of both plat­forms in attract­ing the unde­cid­ed vot­ers. He said it was evi­dent that the elec­torate is look­ing for lead­er­ship that will meet the IMF con­di­tion­al­i­ties, while improv­ing their lives.

“The polit­i­cal rhetoric and polit­i­cal optics dis­played, while res­onat­ing with par­ty sup­port­ers, have a dif­fer­ent inter­pre­ta­tion with the unde­cid­ed, first-time vot­ers, the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, and swing vot­ers,” he said.

Voters, he added, would also be con­cerned about the ben­e­fits under a new Administration over the next five years.

Political inter­est, he said, has been height­ened since the par­ties launched their man­i­festos last week, but not­ed that the pub­lic con­ver­sa­tion is more about the JLP’s 10-point plan.

The PNP, he said, has been respond­ing through a sin­gle voice (Dr Peter Phillips), which has raised the ques­tion of who will be the next leader of the party.

“Maybe there is a not-so-vis­i­ble polit­i­cal hand at work that may see Dr Phillips emerg­ing as the leader of the PNP in the next five years” he observed.

He said that in the few days lead­ing up to Thursday’s elec­tion, it will be hand-tohand com­bat in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies, while point­ing out that the var­i­ous incen­tives being offered to moti­vate cer­tain vot­ers — the strength of var­i­ous can­di­dates and strate­gies on elec­tion day to get out the vot­ers — will be crucial.

“One would expect a strate­gic allo­ca­tion of cam­paign resources in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies,” he said.

Ramsamooj, who com­mend­ed the Jamaican elec­torate for their lev­el of matu­ri­ty, said the choic­es made by cit­i­zens will be crit­i­cal to choic­es of lead­er­ship and poli­cies that should guide Jamaica through the tur­bu­lent glob­al waters.

He said, too, that polit­i­cal trust and com­pet­i­tive­ness and con­nec­tiv­i­ty to the elec­torate at the con­stituen­cy lev­el will also influ­ence voters.

Ramsamooj has, over the years, done polit­i­cal polling in Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Suriname, Belize, Guyana, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Anguila, and St Kitts and Nevis. Read more here : T&T poll­ster finds momen­tum lean­ing to JLP

With General Elections sched­uled for February 25^th less than three(3) full days away, Jamaicans will once again go to the polls to elect a Government.
Jamaica’s Parliamentary style democ­ra­cy gives vot­ers the choice to go to the polls and elect Constituency representatives,members of par­lai­ment (MP). Members are pre­de­ter­mined by the two major polit­i­cal parties.
So much for democracy !!!
There are a smat­ter­ing of oth­er par­ties like the National Democratic Movement. Jerusalem Bread Foundation and the New Nation Coalition. 
Neither of the oth­er par­ties have won a seat in the Island’s par­lia­ment to date . Thus far these bud­ding move­ments are large­ly seen as dis­grun­tled off-shoots from the Lamaica Labor Party(JLP) and the People’s National Party(PNP).

Technically Jamaicans do not vote for a Prime Minister they vote for their con­stituen­cy rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The Party which wins the most seats in the Island’s 63 seat Legislature then forms the Government. The head of the win­ning Party is then sworn in as the Prime Minister.

This style of elec­toral pol­i­tics makes it crit­i­cal for the par­ties vying for pow­er to hold onto as many seats as they can. Of course the method­ol­o­gy employed toward that end is gen­er­al­ly anti­thet­i­cal to the demo­c­ra­t­ic process, and the very idea of hav­ing elec­tions in the first place.
The par­ty in con­trol has total say over the purse strings, in small nations like Jamaica where checks and bal­ances only apply to one’s bank account, scarce resources are doled out as the par­ty in pow­er sees fit.

In essence the par­ty in pow­er fur­ther solid­i­fy it’s hold the longer it remains in office by using patronage/​pay pol­i­tics to main­tain it’s hold on the vul­ner­a­ble. This is gen­er­al­ly done through hand­outs. Free hous­es , jobs par­ty hacks nev­er show up to , and oth­er good­ies. Most impor­tant­ly how­ev­er is the cre­ation of entire com­mu­ni­ties loy­al to one par­ty or the other.
This nec­es­sar­i­ly means that the par­ty in pow­er holds onto pow­er through patron­age of the most crass order.
It’s vote buy­ing at it’s worse yet it’s not the only way that vot­ers are manip­u­lat­ed , actu­al peo­ple turn­ing up at peo­ple’s homes not know sup­port­er of the par­ty in pow­er and offer­ing them mon­ey for their vote is quite common.
The process fills the bel­lies of the vot­ers in ques­tion for a night, con­tin­ues the Governing par­ty’s stran­gle­hold on pow­er, while erod­ing the foun­da­tion of the demo­c­ra­t­ic process.

As a con­se­quence of the fore­gone this elec­tion cycle the People’s National Party will go into the elec­tions seek­ing a major­i­ty of the 63 seats in the leg­is­la­ture while hold­ing arguably 12 seats which are not in contention.
For it’s part the Jamaica Labor Party will do the same with what what some say are rough­ly 6 seats which are not in play.
Over the years there have been calls from many quar­ters for the Island to do away with Garrison Politics which they argue have caused rep­re­sen­ta­tives who hold those con­stituen­cy seats to be uncar­ing about con­stituen­t’s wel­fare. Additionally they argue that mod­ern poli­cies can­not be imple­ment­ed because access to gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties are lim­it­ed both phys­i­cal­ly and intellectually.

This elec­tion the Jamaica Labor Party is ask­ing the seg­ment of the elec­torate expe­ri­enc­ing apa­thy toward the process to give the par­ty anoth­er chance at Government.
The con­ven­tion­al wis­dom is that the PNP is a par­ty which cares about the poor­er class of the peo­ple. Of course since 1972 the PNP has held office for almost 32 of those 44 years.
It’s not dif­fi­cult to see how patron­age pol­i­tics could help to cement that nar­ra­tive. Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has not missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to ham­mer home the idea that her par­ty is a par­ty for the poor earn­ing her­self the moniker (mam­ma P).

The Labor Party has not done enough to counter that nar­ra­tive since Seaga was first accused of being a white man who cared about the rich. Additionally some of the younger mem­bers of the par­ty seem to believe peo­ple like being spo­ken down to.
On sev­er­al occa­sions this writer has spo­ken out about sev­er­al mem­bers of the JLP and their sense of elitism.
The Jamaican peo­ple are not above re-elect­ing a par­ty and woman at the helm many believe is not the bright­est bulb in the shed but who relate to them on their level.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — With police, sol­diers and elec­tion day work­ers sched­uled to vote in the island’s 17^th gen­er­al elec­tion today, the police high com­mand yes­ter­day remind­ed mem­bers of the con­stab­u­lary to con­duct them­selves in a pro­fes­sion­al man­ner and refrain from any activ­i­ties that may cast a shad­ow over the organisation.

Clifford Blake, deputy com­mis­sion­er of police who has respon­si­bil­i­ty for strate­gic oper­a­tions, said that while cops have the right to vote for the par­ty of their choice, there are a num­ber of things for which the Jamaica Constabulary Force has adopt­ed a zero tol­er­ance approach. One of them was the dis­play by any of its mem­bers pub­licly, or on social media, of alle­giance to any polit­i­cal par­ty Noting that the prac­tice could lead to severe pun­ish­ment, Blake said they have received reports of one such case and it is being inves­ti­gat­ed. “Members of the secu­ri­ty forces are ful­ly aware of the mat­ter. They have been briefed in the Force Orders to refrain from such prac­tice,” Blake told OBSERVER ONLINE. He said the police were “ready and ful­ly pre­pared” for today’s activ­i­ties and added that they were close­ly watch­ing sev­er­al hot spots across the island to pre­vent ten­sions ris­ing between sup­port­ers of the country’s two main polit­i­cal par­ties. Read more here : #DecisionJa2016: Police remind­ed to dis­play pro­fes­sion­al­ism today

In the 1990’s US General Colin Powell was cred­it­ed with devel­op­ing what is know as the [Powell Doctrine] .
The Powell doc­trine was a series of ques­tions the first ever Black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a Bronx native of Jamaican par­ents developed.
The idea behind the Powell doc­trine was to estab­lish before­hand whether cer­tain fun­da­men­tal cri­te­ria had been met before engag­ing the American Military in a war.

1 Is a vital nation­al secu­ri­ty inter­est threat­ened? 2. Do we have a clear attain­able objec­tive? 3. Have the risks and costs been ful­ly and frankly ana­lyzed? 4. Have all oth­er non­vi­o­lent pol­i­cy means been ful­ly exhaust­ed? 5. Is there a plau­si­ble exit strat­e­gy to avoid end­less entan­gle­ment? 6. Have the con­se­quences of our action been ful­ly con­sid­ered? 7. Is the action sup­port­ed by the American peo­ple? 8. Do we have gen­uine broad inter­na­tion­al support?

If those ques­tions are answered “yes” ‚General Powell believed that The United States should use all nec­es­sary force to get the job done, do it and go home.
Powell also believe that a nation should nev­er engage in war it could poten­tial­ly lose. If there is any poten­tial for a loss then it may be a good idea not to get into a fight.
Colin Powell fig­ured America was in no real dan­ger from oth­er Nation states because of it’s immense mil­i­tary might. As such he felt it was not in America’s best inter­est to get involved in mil­i­tary skir­mish­es but should only engage mil­i­tar­i­ly where America’s vital inter­est are at stake.

Using the Powell log­ic ( with­out ref­er­enc­ing his name) I recent­ly wrote about the ongo­ing inane and ridicu­lous cam­paign Jamaica’s People’s National Party was wag­ing against the Leader of the Opposition Labor Party’s house.
In the Article I argued that the debate was a prod­uct of the envy Michael Manley sowed in the 1970’s when he was prime Minister of the Island.
HOLNESS’S HOUSE A PRODUCT OF ENVY MANLEY SOWED…..
The Article has drawn a mas­sive and vis­cer­al rebuke from Manley’s cultists both on the Island and in the dias­po­ra, the major­i­ty of whom decid­ed that per­son­al­ly attack­ing me was the best way of reg­is­ter­ing their dis­con­tent since they could­n’t cred­i­bly refute the facts of my arguments.
I under­stand just how frus­trat­ing it must be for those orange-cool-aid-drinkers to be total­ly endued with a phi­los­o­phy which was large­ly built on fiction.

It was nev­er my inten­tion to speak to Michael Manley’s intent when he said there were five flights leav­ing for Miami and those who dis­agreed with his poli­cies should board those flights.
His unmit­i­gat­ed gall was astound­ing, as if the coun­try was his.
Despite his arro­gance how­ev­er Michael Manley real­ized the error of his ways and in hind­sight he spoke of his regret in mak­ing those statements.
Notwithstanding those who wor­ship at the altar of denial chose to attack with­out one iota of evi­dence which dis­cred­its the asser­tions I made.
In fact Michael Manley’s son Joseph Manley may have made the best argu­ment in sup­port of my contentions.
In a Facebook rant sup­pos­ed­ly in defense of Peter Phillips who now faces ques­tions about his house, Joseph Manley the son of Michael Manley said Quote
” Opposition Leader, Andrew Holness’ house is “vul­gar and over-sized” .

Vulgar and over-sized! What real man talks about anoth­er man’s house in those terms? What’s next his wife is too pret­ty? Where does the envy stop ?
You real­ly can­not make this s**t up. If those aren’t words which reflect envy will some­one please tell me what they stem from , I am will­ing to learn.

The ide­o­log­i­cal tenets of Manley’s so-called Democratic Socialism was in essence a crawl­ing peg slide into Fidel Castro’s Communism. Thankfully the gen­er­a­tion of vot­ers at the time had the good sense to reject that ide­ol­o­gy whole­sale in 1980.
Michael Manley was a son of privilege,like Franklin Delano Roosevelt Manley was seen by many as a trai­tor to his class . Michael Manley saw the social and soci­etal ills plagu­ing the young Jamaican nation and want­ed change.
For that Manly is to be com­mend­ed. Good inten­tions which result­ed in whole­sale chaos does not insu­late Manley from the crit­i­cism he just­ly deserve. Referencing his good inten­tions may have mit­i­gat­ing val­ue but good inten­tions are not grounds for absolution.

In a October 20o4 speech deliv­ered to the Florida Atlantic University First Michael Manley Symposium, Professor David P. Rowe poignant­ly asked and answered .…..
Did Michael Manley tram­ple on any­body’s rights once he achieved high office? Did the Fabianism of the London School of Economics accom­mo­date indi­vid­ual rights and freedoms?
Shortly after Manley’s elec­tion in 1972, the ‘pork bar­rel’ start­ed and Jamaicans were treat­ed to the ‘Special Employment’ or ‘crash’ pro­gram, an unfor­tu­nate bla­tant reward for par­ty sup­port­ers, for vot­ing the right way in the l972 elections.
The Special Employment Program was legal­ly valid but prob­a­bly mis-man­aged as the par­tic­i­pants were the tar­gets of polit­i­cal pressure.
Crash pro­gram work­ers were seen receiv­ing large cheques for what appeared to be almost no work and the impres­sion giv­en was that if you were from ‘down­town’, you were a ‘suf­fer­er’ and had the right to ‘free’ mon­ey. The crash pro­gram mon­ey gave way to nation­al ideology.
Manley was extreme­ly pop­u­lar, but not for the uplift­ment of the Constitutional Rights of poor peo­ple, Professor Rowe wrote.
http://​www​.con​sti​tu​tion​-and​-rights​.com/​m​a​n​l​e​y​R​i​g​h​t​s​.​htm.

As is cus­tom­ary with the mass­es of Jamaicans the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom is to react to form over sub­stance. As I have said repeat­ed­ly their love affair with Manley, the People’s National Party and the regres­sive ide­ol­o­gy of that par­ty is sim­i­lar to cot­ton can­dy, sweet to the taste leaves you thirsty and is ulti­mate­ly bad for your health.
It was not my inten­tion to trum­pet the intent of Michael Manley. A true leader is judged by his/​her deci­sion mak­ing and not nec­es­sar­i­ly by his/​her abil­i­ty to move a crowd.

Michael Manley want­ed to change the plight of the poor we can cred­it him for try­ing while we judge him for his inabil­i­ty to under­stand Geo-politics.
If every dol­lar is tak­en from the rich­est peo­ple among us and divid­ed among the world’s poor it would not change the par­a­digm. “You can’t make the poor rich by mak­ing the rich poor­er” .(Abraham Lincoln)
Chasing away the pro­duc­tive sec­tor was not help­ing the poor, it was ensur­ing that for gen­er­a­tions the poor­er class would be slaves to abject poverty.

Embracing Castro at the heights of the cold war while thumb­ing his nose at the United States may have played well on a cam­paign stage.
It may have impressed thou­sands of non-Spanish speak­ing Jamaicans who cheered Castro while nev­er under­stand­ing a sin­gle syl­la­ble out­side the words “com­panero Manley”.
When the rub­ber meets the road how­ev­er it is “Quixotic” to pick a fight with an adver­sary you can­not beat.
Michael Manley was a ter­rif­ic leader in the fight against oppres­sion and racial big­otry unde­ni­ably. As a school­boy I was proud of the work he did in bring­ing to the fore the plight of the suf­fer­ing peo­ple of Southern Africa and in many ways the release of Nelson Mandela from prison.

Unfortunately even as Manley cham­pi­oned the case for free­dom on the International stage he nev­er under­stood when not to fight or who not t0 pick a fight with.
In the end the talk about the CIA involve­ment in Jamaica which result­ed in Manley’ undo­ing is not exact­ly an argu­ment which mer­its seri­ous dialogue.
It estab­lish­es that Manley’s Quixotic cru­sade against the Capitalist west was an effort in futil­i­ty which caused more pain than gain.
Like Colin Powell said, if poten­tial­ly you may lose do not go to war.

Many have asked why Dr. Martin Luther King did not wage a vio­lent strug­gle in the United States against Racial oppres­sion and segregation?
The sim­ple answer is that he had no chance of win­ning . That is the dif­fer­ence. When you can­not win do not fight , try nego­ti­at­ing not antagonizing>
I am pre­pared to con­tin­ue this debate with those who feel they can debate on the merits.

Senior Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed away on Friday February 12^th at a ranch in Texas while on a hunt­ing trip , Scalia was 79 years old.
No soon­er had the news of Scalia’s pass­ing hit the air­waves Republican Presidential can­di­date Ted Cruz said that the President of the United States Barack Obama should not appoint a replace­ment for Scalia because a Supreme Court Justice of Scalia’s stature should be replaced by the next President. The oth­er Cuban run­ning on the repub­li­can tick­et Marco Rubio also chimed in with exact­ly the very same arguments.
Now here’s the thing, the President of the United States has a con­sti­tu­tion­al duty to appoint a replace­ment to Scalia .
Failing which he would exact­ly be in direct con­tra­ven­tion of his duties and respon­si­bil­i­ties as president.

President Obama will be in office until January of 2017 a full 11 months away. Nevertheless the old cur­mud­geon Senate Majority leader Mitch McConell was quick to say the Senate would not take up any appoint­ment the pres­i­dent puts for­ward as a replace­ment to Scalia. For those not so famil­iar with the US Constitution the President is duty bound to appoint a replace­ment and the sen­ate has a duty to advise and con­sent on a poten­tial replacement.
To sug­gest that the sen­ate will not even con­sid­er a Obama appointee is sim­ply obstruc­tion­ism in it’s most bla­tant form.

Lets talk about Ted Cruz for a second.
Here is a Cuban Hispanic who has some­how man­aged to trans­form him­self from a Canadian born Cuban to a Southern white Anglo-Saxon who wraps him­self in the American flag under the guise of a Constitutional purist.
Yet the very moment it is con­ve­nient for Cruz and his par­ty polit­i­cal­ly the lit­tle Cuban shreds the con­sti­tu­tion with reck­less abandon.
Even Cruz’s Republican col­leagues crit­i­cize him for being a liar and a pre­ten­tious bas­tard No one is as con­ser­v­a­tive as Cruz. No one is a chris­t­ian as Cruz. No one is more Reagan than Cruz. Only prob­lem is that Reagan could not pass muster as a con­ser­v­a­tive in Ted Cruz’x GOP.

President Obama addressed the nation on the pass­ing of Scalia .

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Good evening, every­body. For almost 30 years, Justice Antonin “Nino” Scalia was a larg­er-than-life pres­ence on the bench — a bril­liant legal mind with an ener­getic style, inci­sive wit, and col­or­ful opinions.

He influ­enced a gen­er­a­tion of judges, lawyers, and stu­dents, and pro­found­ly shaped the legal land­scape. He will no doubt be remem­bered as one of the most con­se­quen­tial judges and thinkers to serve on the Supreme Court. Justice Scalia ded­i­cat­ed his life to the cor­ner­stone of our democ­ra­cy: The rule of law. Tonight, we hon­or his extra­or­di­nary ser­vice to our nation and remem­ber one of the tow­er­ing legal fig­ures of our time. Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey to an Italian immi­grant fam­i­ly. After grad­u­at­ing from Georgetown University and Harvard Law School, he worked at a law firm and taught law before enter­ing a life of pub­lic ser­vice. He rose from Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel to Judge on the D.C. Circuit Court, to Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. A devout Catholic, he was the proud father of nine chil­dren and grand­fa­ther to many lov­ing grand­chil­dren. Justice Scalia was both an avid hunter and an opera lover — a pas­sion for music that he shared with his dear col­league and friend, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Michelle and I were proud to wel­come him to the White House, includ­ing in 2012 for a State Dinner for Prime Minister David Cameron. And tonight, we join his fel­low jus­tices in mourn­ing this remark­able man.

Obviously, today is a time to remem­ber Justice Scalia’s lega­cy. I plan to ful­fill my con­sti­tu­tion­al respon­si­bil­i­ties to nom­i­nate a suc­ces­sor in due time. There will be plen­ty of time for me to do so, and for the Senate to ful­fill its respon­si­bil­i­ty to give that per­son a fair hear­ing and a time­ly vote. These are respon­si­bil­i­ties that I take seri­ous­ly, as should every­one. They’re big­ger than any one par­ty. They are about our democ­ra­cy. They’re about the insti­tu­tion to which Justice Scalia ded­i­cat­ed his pro­fes­sion­al life, and mak­ing sure it con­tin­ues to func­tion as the bea­con of jus­tice that our Founders envi­sioned. But at this moment, we most of all want to think about his fam­i­ly, and Michelle and I join the nation in send­ing our deep­est sym­pa­thies to Justice Scalia’s wife, Maureen, and their lov­ing fam­i­ly — a beau­ti­ful sym­bol of a life well lived. We thank them for shar­ing Justice Scalia with our country. 

God bless them all, and God bless the United States of America.

The Main stream Media did not waste time, it was­n’t long before the wall-to-wall report­ing became cloy­ing. It would be dif­fi­cult to imag­ine from the report­ing that Scalia was­n’t a Saint.
But Scalia was no Saint, while the Main stream media trips over itself in it’s quest t0 gush over Scalia’s life we decid­ed to show that Scalia was any­thing but a Saint.

Not every­one was will­ing to pros­ti­tute the facts on the altar of polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness, one prac­ti­cal observ­er said.….
Quote: Scalia is a pompous, arro­gant, con­ceit­ed man. His ear­li­est days on the Court were marked with bom­bas­tic out­bursts at coun­sel, dis­rupt­ing attempts by very respectable intel­lec­tu­als in the law, that were tru­ly objec­tive and unbi­ased. (Are judges sup­posed to be that way, too?)Unless you know Constitutional law, you won’t under­stand how he and the Rehnquist Court lit­er­al­ly sus­pend­ed the doc­trine of “stare deci­sis,” adher­ence to prece­dent, so they could “decon­struct” decades of well-set­tled American jurispru­dence and “recon­struct” their own Federalist phi­los­o­phy, which claims the author of the Federalist Papers was the sole repos­i­to­ry of the col­lec­tive mind­set of the Founding Fathers.

Before his pass­ing Antonin Scalia did not attend a State of the Union address since 1997. His rea­son for opt­ing out of the State of the Union address ?

“It has turned into a child­ish spec­ta­cle, and I don’t think that I want to be there to lend dig­ni­ty to it.”
What mod­esty ?[sic]
Talk about an inflat­ed ego?

“The State of the Union is not some­thing I write on my cal­en­dar,” Scalia said dur­ing his own remarks in 2013 before the Smithsonian Associates at George Washington University dur­ing President Obama’s State of the Union address. But he quipped, “I did­n’t set this up tonight just to upstage the president.”

1. King v. Burwell, 2015:

When the Supreme Court upheld a major por­tion of Obamacare for the sec­ond time, Scalia unleashed some of his most scathing rebukes, accus­ing his col­leagues of “inter­pre­tive jig­gery-pok­ery” and and writ­ing off its log­ic as “pure apple­sauce” in his dis­sent. He was also clear­ly sick of see­ing the Supreme Court side with Obama’s lega­cy leg­is­la­tion, writ­ing, “We should start­ing call­ing this law SCOTUScare.”

2. National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 2012:

The first time the Supreme Court con­sid­ered Obamacare, Scalia con­densed the entire debate over America’s health care sys­tem using an unlike­ly sym­bol: Broccoli. If the gov­ern­ment could tell cit­i­zens which health care to pur­chase, he argued, could it start enforc­ing our veg­eta­bles, too? “Everybody has to buy food soon­er or lat­er, so you define the mar­ket as food,” he said dur­ing argu­ments. “Therefore, every­body is in the mar­ket; there­fore, you can make peo­ple buy broc­coli.” The veg­gie became an endur­ing sym­bol of the Obamacare debate.

3. Atkins v. Virginia, 2002:

Scalia’s harsh­est put-down of his fel­low jus­tices came in his dis­sent for this case pro­hibit­ing the exe­cu­tion of men­tal­ly dis­abled con­victs. Scalia, one of three dis­senters, thought sil­ly emo­tions got the best of his col­leagues. “Seldom has an opin­ion of this Court rest­ed so obvi­ous­ly upon noth­ing but the per­son­al views of its mem­bers,” he wrote.

4. PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, 2001:

The PGA Tour required all golfers to walk between shots dur­ing a qual­i­fy­ing tour­na­ment. The Supreme Court, hear­ing a case from dis­abled play­er Casey Martin, decid­ed this was uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Scalia’s reac­tion? Get deep on the rules of golf, and show some love for Kurt Vonnegut. In his dis­sent, Scalia ref­er­enced Vonnegut’s short sto­ry “Harrison Bergeron,” a satire about a future where the Constitution pre­vents any American from being bet­ter than anoth­er. He also mocked the mon­u­men­tal rul­ing the Court just bela­bored over a game. “Is some­one rid­ing around a golf course from shot to shot real­ly a golfer?” he wrote in his dis­sent. “The answer, we learn, is yes. The Court ulti­mate­ly con­cludes, and it will hence­forth be the Law of the Land, that walk­ing is not a ‘fun­da­men­tal’ aspect of golf.”

5. United States v. Virginia, 1996:

In anoth­er sports unex­pect­ed anal­o­gy, Scalia warned that the rul­ing of a mil­i­tary insti­tute’s gen­der pol­i­cy might as well sig­nal the death of sports. As the lone dis­senter in a case rul­ing against the Virginia Military Institute’s pol­i­cy of only admit­ting men, Scalia wrote: “If it were impos­si­ble for indi­vid­ual human beings (or groups of human begins) to act autonomous­ly in effec­tive pur­suit of a com­mon goal, the game of soc­cer would not exist.”

6. Fisher v. University of Texas ‚2015: A con­tentious affir­ma­tive action case, the con­ser­v­a­tive jus­tice seemed to call the abil­i­ties of African-America stu­dents into ques­tion. “There are those who con­tend that it does not ben­e­fit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well,” Scalia said, “as opposed to hav­ing them go to a less-advanced school … a slow­er-track school where they do well.”
Even though Scalia used the term “there are those who con­tend” he nev­er argued that those con­tentions con­flict with his own feel­ings. The infer­ence being affir­ma­tive action is bad for black stu­dents because they’re not smart enough to suc­ceed in good schools.

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama went to the Supreme Court and paid their final respects to Scalia whose body laid in repose on Friday .
The President will not be attend­ing Scalia’s funer­al. In my mind regard­less of what guides the President’s deci­sion, it’s a sol­id decision.

There was a gen­er­al say­ing around Election time that whichev­er polit­i­cal par­ty the secu­ri­ty forces sup­port in large num­bers is the par­ty which will be vic­to­ri­ous at the polls. I believe that in light of that the police as a vot­ing block and indeed an inter­est group should hold some sway , or have some lever­age inso­far as it per­tains to their vote in a block.
This does not mean by any stretch that the police as a group is a mono­lith, but police offi­cers like oth­er large groups are acute­ly posi­tioned to rec­og­nize where they get the best sup­port and sub­se­quent­ly where their per­son­al and orga­ni­za­tion­al inter­est lies.

JUXTAPOSE THAT WITH THE GOVERNMENT’S POSITION MERELY MONTHS AGO.
JAMAICA GOVT. TO POLICE REFUSE TO WORK, WE CONFISCATE YOUR PROPERTY…..

People’s National Party Leader Portia Simpson Miller and her party has decided to forego the debates process and make itself available to a friendly panel of questioners hosted by RJR.

The People’s National Party on Thursday said it has accept­ed an invi­ta­tion from the RJR Communications Group to take part in a 90-minute ses­sion focus­ing on the 2016 gen­er­al elec­tion. According to the Jamaican Media one Journalist has announced that she will not be par­tic­i­pat­ing in that ques­tion and answer being host­ed by the RJR group as a mat­ter of principle.
This medi­um wish­es to con­grat­u­late that Journalist who refus­es to sur­ren­der her jour­nal­is­tic prin­ci­ples in order to be in on the sen­sa­tion­al­ist fer­vor sur­round­ing a polit­i­cal party.

By cre­at­ing pre­con­di­tions to par­tic­i­pat­ing in the debates the PNP has demon­strat­ed that it does not con­sid­er itself con­strained by rules of accountability.
Thumbing it’s nose at the Jamaican peo­ple, the People’s National Party has demon­strat­ed that true to it’s prin­ci­ples, noth­ing has changed from Michael Manley’s ide­o­log­i­cal flir­ta­tious affair with Communism before he was sent pack­ing in 1980 by the Jamaican people.

The nar­ra­tive Jamaica is PNP coun­try ought to stand as a stark reminder to all Jamaicans that that par­ty does not believe in the demo­c­ra­t­ic process. The prime Minister’s refusal to speak to the Media for the greater part of her term in office, her par­ty’s refusal to account regard­ing Trafigura, Finsac , and oth­er scan­dals, is in line with it’s most recent deci­sion not to debate the opposition.

These are not the actions of a demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty , but a par­ty will­ing to do the bare min­i­mum to get through the elec­toral process hop­ing to be allowed to go back to being unac­count­able and above the law. A news release from the PNP Thursday said that a PNP con­tin­gent, led by Portia Simpson Miller, would field ques­tions from a group of jour­nal­ists drawn from with­in the RJR Group’s news­room. The ses­sion will be broad­cast before February 22, the release added.

Regardless of the dis­re­spect and dis­dain come February 25^th thou­sands and thou­sands of Jamaicans will emerge from all walks of life, over hills and gul­lies to vote for the People’s National Party. None of this will mean any­thing to them because as they will read­i­ly tell you they were born “Kumreds”.
It’s dif­fi­cult to envis­age how that par­a­digm is reversed in light of the pre­vail­ing lack of edu­ca­tion on the part of the wider elec­torate . The Political par­ties expect the peo­ple to vote for them regard­less of their behav­ior this time will be no different.

We wish to update this sto­ry since it was first reported >
The RJR Media group has announced that the 90 minute ques­tion and answer it had sched­uled between the group and the two major polit­i­cal par­ties is now off.
RJR has advised that Opposition leader Leader Andrew Holness advised that he would now decline par­tic­i­pa­tion as the RJR fora is being posi­tioned by the People’s National Party as an alter­na­tive to the Jamaica Debates Commission (JDC) debates,” the RJR Group said. RJR Group calls off news forum with PNP, JLP

This medi­um sup­port the deci­sion of the Opposition par­ty on the basis that the debates process is an estab­lished pro­to­col designed for can­di­dates offer­ing them­selves for lead­er­ship of our coun­try to be ques­tioned by the media with a view to edu­cat­ing the pub­lic as to what they would do if elected.
The People’s National Party does not have the right to sum­mar­i­ly decide it will not par­tic­i­pate in that estab­lished prac­tice (though not a law) while seek­ing alter­na­tive means which it deduces may be more friend­ly to it’s poli­cies. MB