Government Postpones Election-again, Roads Are Trenches In North East St. Catherine…

The deci­sion by the Andrew Holness Government to push through a bill that post­pones local gov­ern­ment elections.…..again, to February 28, 2024, high­lights the glar­ing real­i­ty that elec­tions have consequences.
Over the angry protests of Mark Golding People’s National Party’s oppo­si­tion to the bill and the oblig­a­tory walk-out, the bill was pushed through on a 20 to 8 vote.
The Holness Administration post­poned the local gov­ern­ment elec­tions due in February 2021 dur­ing the height of the COVID pan­dem­ic. The oppo­si­tion PNP argued that they did not oppose putting off those elec­tions at the time as it made sense.
The oppo­si­tion is angry, how­ev­er, that this was the third post­pone­ment since 2021. Moreover, the oppo­si­tion is not buy­ing the rea­sons for this lat­est post­pone­ment. Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie, who made the case for the Government’s posi­tion, argued that the Government had weighed the bal­ance. We believe at this time where the coun­try is, the fact that we have to con­sid­er impor­tant issues — an elec­tion is impor­tant — but I urge the coun­try’s patience to under­stand and respect the deci­sion of the Government”.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​-​c​o​u​l​d​-​c​o​p​y​-​p​a​s​t​e​-​f​r​o​m​-​o​t​h​e​r​s​-​t​h​a​t​-​d​i​d​-​i​t​-​b​e​f​o​r​e​-​b​u​t​-​e​v​e​n​-​t​h​a​t​-​i​s​-​t​o​o​-​d​i​f​f​i​c​u​lt/

https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​c​r​i​s​i​s​-​o​f​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​s​h​i​p​-​m​a​k​e​s​-​j​a​m​a​i​c​a​n​s​-​v​u​l​n​e​r​a​b​l​e​-​t​o​-​a​l​l​-​k​i​n​d​s​-​o​f​-​i​l​ls/

“We are in a bet­ter posi­tion than last year, but it is clear that we are not yet out of the woods. The Government is focused on build­ing nation­al resilience against fur­ther eco­nom­ic shocks and expand­ing and main­tain­ing strong eco­nom­ic growth.” According to the min­is­ter, hold­ing the munic­i­pal elec­tions at this time car­ried sig­nif­i­cant risk of divert­ing the coun­try from these two tasks.
If ever there was a load of pop­py­cock, this is it. Using this log­ic, there would nev­er be elec­tions in Jamaica ever. In fact, any admin­is­tra­tion in pow­er in any coun­try could use that log­ic to post­pone elec­tions they fear may be unfa­vor­able to them.
Here again, is a case for Jamaica to adopt a Republican gov­er­nance mod­el through a new con­sti­tu­tion­al order and one that has set elec­tion dates.
Elections are the most vital ele­ment in a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety, and they should not be left up to the whims of the par­ty in pow­er to manip­u­late them to suit their needs.
Fixed elec­tions allow the peo­ple (the real boss­es) to deter­mine who they choose to lead.
The oppo­si­tion par­ty does­n’t always get it right, and although the par­ty is whol­ly craven about gain­ing pow­er for pow­er’s sake, its argu­ments are no less reasonable.

Having said that, it is impor­tant to draw atten­tion to the lack of use­ful­ness of the local gov­ern­ment, and some will argue the cen­tral gov­ern­ment as well. Jamaica’s roads are a lit­tle more than don­key tracks in many cases.
Growing up in the District of Bonnett North East St Catherine in the 70s, a paved road was some­thing we saw in Benbow, Guys Hill, and oth­er more well-known areas. The road from Benbow into Bonnett was a dirt track cov­ered in stones and trenches.
North East Saint Catherine, from as far as I can remem­ber, sup­port­ed the Jamaica Labor Party; from John Percival Gyles to E K Powell, the con­stituen­cy remained JLP except lat­er when the PNP won, and Phillis Mitchell rep­re­sent­ed the constituency.
As a school­boy grow­ing up there, E K Powell was very acces­si­ble as a Member of Parliament. He was active in encour­ag­ing youth sports and was instru­men­tal in facil­i­tat­ing cross-dis­trict crick­et­ing rivalries.
We lob­bied Mister Powell inces­sant­ly as a col­lec­tive of young peo­ple, and indi­vid­u­al­ly I lob­bied the gov­ern­ment uti­liz­ing Ronnie Thwaites and Wilmott Perkins’s dai­ly radio shows.

The road into Bonnett was even­tu­al­ly paved. The road into Bonnett today is once again a dirt track. I sat down with a friend and a fam­i­ly mem­ber last November and rem­i­nisced about how we were instru­men­tal in get­ting the road paved. I was stunned that one friend was quick to take cred­it for hav­ing some­thing to do with it while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly join­ing with my rel­a­tive to tell me noth­ing could be done to fix the road today, over four decades lat­er, as it is con­sid­ered a sec­ondary road.
The road was a sec­ondary road forty-plus years ago when I inces­sant­ly lob­bied and shamed them into fix­ing it as a schoolboy.
The road that was beau­ti­ful­ly paved well over four decades ago is now a dirt track, and noth­ing will be done about it because some peo­ple there lack imag­i­na­tion and are sat­is­fied with the sta­tus quo. 

I chopped a few choice pieces of Jamaican fab­ric dur­ing that con­ver­sa­tion with my friend and fam­i­ly mem­ber. I was total­ly pissed that peo­ple could be that com­fort­able with mediocrity.
When I inquired about rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the local gov­ern­ment, I was told that some guy named [Dunn] was the coun­cilor there. He is not from there but had fam­i­ly from there.
On my last trip home last November, the SUV I drove sus­tained a flat tire from falling into the craters that are impos­si­ble to nav­i­gate with­out falling into some of them.
I am call­ing on the Jamaica Labor Party Member of Parliament for North East Saint Catherine, Kerensia Morrison, to fix the road lead­ing into Bonnett From Benbow. Failing this, I will begin a cam­paign for cit­i­zens there to look at the oth­er par­ty not because it is bet­ter but to send a mes­sage that this behav­ior will not be tolerated.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.