Elections May Be Imminent ? What’s In It For Jamaica.….

It appears the Governing People’s National Party (PNP) is posi­tion­ing itself to announce nation­al Elections in Jamaica if not today in the not too dis­tant future.
Opposition Member Of Parliament Carl Samuda prob­a­bly feel­ing the seis­mic rum­blings have chal­lenged Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to call Elections.
Of course it is impor­tant that we take a peek at what’s at stake in it for Jamaicans when the Prime Minister exer­cis­es her dis­cre­tion to call nation­al elections.
Readers unfa­mil­iar with Jamaican pol­i­tics are prob­a­bly aghast that nation­al elec­tions are left up to the leader of the par­ty in pow­er to decide.
So once again this Publication calls for fixed Election dates. This removes the prospect of manip­u­la­tion of the process for par­ti­san polit­i­cal pur­pos­es. It gives the gov­ern­ing par­ty the impe­tus to work for the good of the peo­ple rather than wait for inci­den­tal indices which may be con­strued to be com­ple­men­tary of the par­ty in power.

Insofar as con­di­tions in the coun­try are con­cerned it defies log­ic as to what would be in the indices which would cause the Prime Minister to think that call­ing elec­tions at this time would be favor­able to her par­ty, [if true].
Most cat­e­gories of crime are sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er than the same peri­od last year. Of course the Prime Minister is either bliss­ful­ly igno­rant or detached­ly uncon­cerned with the crime stats. The Prime Minister’s polit­i­cal rise was one which was made pos­si­ble as a result of crime and chaos as such it is quite easy to under­stand her lack of con­cern for mur­der and may­hem. They sim­ply do not cause her any pause or alarm.
Inflation is through the roof as wages remain stag­nant and the val­ue of the dol­lar depre­ci­ates almost dai­ly forc­ing more and more peo­ple deep­er and deep­er into poverty.
Residents are unable to afford basic food items to feed their fam­i­lies and are unable to pay for books and school fees for their children.

Yet the Governing PNP has always had an ace up its sleeve as far as win­ning elec­tions are con­cerned. The truth of the mat­ter is that the PNP starts out with rough­ly a net eleven (11) seat advan­tage out of a pos­si­ble six­ty three (63) seats in the nation’s parliament.
This is made pos­si­ble as a result of a process called Garrisonization or (ger­ry­man­der­ing) . In Jamaica this is done by the par­ty in pow­er build­ing hous­ing in cer­tain con­stituen­cies they con­trol and giv­ing them to par­ty loy­al­ists. In many instances recip­i­ents of this largess does not pay for the house, pays no elec­tric­i­ty or water bills. Oh did I men­tion they pay no prop­er­ty tax­es either?
This con­cept though not exclu­sive to the PNP has been per­fect­ed by that par­ty because it has sim­ply done a bet­ter job of it and has con­trolled the purse strings for much of the time since independence.
In oth­er words because they have had pow­er for most of the time they get to keep pow­er all of the time.
Hence the mantra “Jamaica a PNP country”.

In polls con­duct­ed sev­er­al months ago and leaked to the pub­lic the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) had rea­sons to be buoyed about it’s chances because of spe­cif­ic indices in the coun­try. Notwithstanding the Labor Party still has to deal with that elevens seat dis­ad­van­tage. It has to deal with it’s own inter­nal series of squab­bles, and most impor­tant­ly it has to deal with it’s per­cep­tion issues.
Many Jamaicans who would nev­er cast a vote for the PNP because of it’s incom­pe­tence, and cor­rup­tion do look at the JLP dis­dain­ful­ly as a result of the per­cep­tion that it is a par­ty of Elitists, yours tru­ly being one of them.
The par­ty long seen as a par­ty of half whites or mulat­to well-to-do peo­ple has done pre­cious lit­tle to divorce itself from that per­cep­tion. Additionally some young upstarts asso­ci­at­ed with the par­ty have been dis­re­spect­ful or at best tact­less in their com­ments regard­ing large swaths of voters.

Despite the fail­ings of the PNP there are many peo­ple who are quite con­tent to put them back in office as a result of the Labor Party’s seem­ing inabil­i­ty to show empa­thy with the com­mon man and exer­cise con­trol over it’s upstarts who seem to believe they have a right to rule.