Massa Mark Suffering From Foot In Mouth Disease…

Why did Mark Golding not oppose the ascen­sion of Juilette Holness to the Speakership of the par­lia­ment at the time the posi­tion was open? The fact that he attacked her ele­va­tion on Tuesday speaks to the vin­dic­tive, cor­ro­sive, insid­i­ous men­tal­i­ty of Golding and his PNP associates.
Posturing out­side the house to fin­ish his speech because he lacked a corum in the House after the walk­out fur­ther demon­strates to the nation this dan­ger­ous and rapa­cious man’s desire for power.
It should nev­er be giv­en to him. Jamaica should not go back to ¹⁸¹⁄₂ ears of PNP rule with noth­ing to show for it in our nation’s development.
I am no Feminist, and damn sure isn’t afraid to be brand­ed a par­ti­san. I will for­ev­er speak out on top­i­cal issues, con­ced­ing, of course, to my per­son­al bias­es as I’m enti­tled to as every oth­er Jamaican.
It should not take Minister Babsy Grange to blast Massa Mark Golding for his inap­pro­pri­ate attack on the duly elect­ed Speaker of the House, Juliette Holness, who also hap­pens to be the wife of Prime Minister Andrew Holness.
The Prime min­is­ter appro­pri­ate­ly walked out of the sit­ting of Parliament on Tuesday after the attack on his wife, fol­lowed by mem­bers of his cabinet.
I com­mend the Prime Minister for walk­ing out even though I do not sup­port walk­outs per se on every disagreement.
I com­mend the Prime Minister for sim­ply walk­ing out; if my wife were attacked in that way, my response would cer­tain­ly not be as dig­ni­fied as sim­ply walk­ing out.

Massa Mark Golding’s attack occurred on Tuesday dur­ing his ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in the House.
“The move to replace her with the wife of the prime min­is­ter so that the head of Parliament is now the spouse of the head of Government real­ly does not sit well with the tra­di­tion that the Speaker must act inde­pen­dent­ly of the Government of the day,” Massa Mark thun­dered on the House floor.
Mr’s Holness, a mem­ber of Parliament, was elect­ed to the post of Speaker of the House, and as I asked a friend this morn­ing who is of the orange per­sua­sion, ‘When has the speak­er of the house nev­er been a mem­ber of the rul­ing party? ’
And if the answer is as it should be, never!!!
Then what was behind this attack on the PM’s wife with­out evi­den­tiary back­ing of wrong­do­ing or malfeasance?
If there is no law bar­ring the spouse of the Prime Minister from the post of House speak­er, why is Massa Mark attack­ing the wife of the Prime Minister?
If Massa Mark Golding meant Jamaica any good and was an effec­tive par­lia­men­tar­i­an, let alone the leader of a worth­while polit­i­cal par­ty, he would pro­pose leg­is­la­tion plug­ging that loop­hole to the extent it could be so perceived.

But the unwar­rant­ed attack on the Speaker of the House can­not only be seen as a misog­y­nis­tic attack but a broad­er cam­paign of smear and tear by Golding in his quest for ulti­mate polit­i­cal power.
Even before the recent local gov­ern­ment elec­tions and buoyed by mar­gin­al gains after the elec­tions, Mark Golding’s rhetoric had become more incen­di­ary and stri­dent and even seemed to threat­en polit­i­cal violence.
Of the 63 seats in the nation’s par­lia­ment, the rul­ing JLP holds 48, and the PNPs 15. Imagine if Massa Mark, with all of this grand­stand­ing and pos­tur­ing, com­mand­ed a polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion stronger than a mere 15 seats?
Lacking a Quorum, Massa Mark went out­side the par­lia­ment to grand­stand on the street corner.
As I point­ed out in the Commentary linked above, we have had peo­ple come close to not con­ced­ing elec­tions lost, e.g., Portia Simpson Miller. Still, the kind of rhetoric we are wit­ness­ing from Mark Golding seems to harken back to dark­er days of polit­i­cal vio­lence that the Jamaican peo­ple have right­ly moved away from.
It is impor­tant that vot­ers, includ­ing those run­ning behind this rapa­cious, pow­er-hun­gry per­son, real­ize that he will not be in har­m’s way if things head south. 
They nev­er are. 
It will con­tin­ue to be the poor and dis­pos­sessed who pay the price for Golding’s reck­less posturing.

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