Ronald Thwaites | Now for the real work

Now that Jamaica’s political directorate has been decided for the next period, the real work starts. By successfully putting themselves forward for the approval of the electorate, the incoming administration has accepted responsibility for whatever follows. Blaming predecessors, as has been the default strategy in the past, won’t work again. After all, this election has brought about a continuity, not a change.

The new legislators deserve both congratulations and commiseration at the same time. Each has put up with a lot to get elected and is beginning this new vocation at possibly the most trying time in our history. The ‘big-ups’ and the ‘forwards’ will soon be accompanied, and later replaced, by the cries of need and greed, the expectation of entitlements and the recognition of the limitations of office.

The numbers willing to shine your Clarks will decrease and the desire to be of service will be muted by the realities of structural inadequacies. Your capacity to buy out the bar will diminish and the absence of a functioning social security system will increase the genuine demands of the underpaid, the unemployed and the underemployed, not to mention the hangers-on.

DEEPER APPRECIATION

So I am hoping that all will approach governance with a deeper appreciation than we showed pre-COVID-19, of the immediate need to keep all our people sufficiently fed, schooled and secured so that they can function usefully and productively until they can stand on their own. Cut off all the orange and green frills, this is the basic task of government.

The army of government backbenchers, unless they break the mould, will learn to kibba their mouths, bang their desks on cue and line up for constituency favours, in scarce supply from their Cabinet superiors.

Independent thought is not prized in the Westminster model of government. Backbenchers’ big chance to make some impact can be at the committee level, but even then, evidence and wisdom in those fora scarcely make their way into policy. Mostly only scandal gets reported.

No other government, not even in 1980, has begun its term with the national economy in such a downward spin. Who knows what revenue will be available while we grapple with COVID-19? The debates showed that up. If the high-level team struck to plot economic recovery ended up with such vagueness, will there be greater wisdom from the floors of Gordon House?

The need for reform of our political culture is most evident after last week, except for those inspired by the titles, the security guards and the back-slapping of sycophants. Of the electorate of about 1.9 million, almost six out of every 10 ignored the civic obligation to vote even as they expect to enjoy the fruits of democracy.

COVID-19 fears would have played a small part in keeping people away from the polling booths but the unavoidable reality is an increasing and now desperately dangerous trend of a majority of our people opting out of voting. In every recent election the rot gets worse.

So the balance of seats notwithstanding, what really is the texture of a mandate, with 37 per cent of the voters exercising their franchise, where only eight per cent of the electorate favoured the PNP and a mere 29 per cent chose the JLP to lead government?

SYSTEMATIC CHANGES

Besides COVID-19, a stalled economy, inbred inequality and its ugly and fatherless children named crime and violence, the big choke on livity in Jamaica is that our leaders, jostling to be first in the kingdom, are inseparable in the sinking sands of growing apathy and mistrust by the majority of our people.

When will we really start to talk about the systemic changes which are really needed? What a shame if the JLP preen in their superiority or the PNP allows a bloody squabble over who is Jew or gentile.

The truth is that these are unprecedented tough times which no government can alleviate by itself. All of us may never achieve what used to be first-world living standards. But we all can be much richer in terms of basic material necessities and the real wealth and prosperity of community, friendship, humour and shared love.

Instinctive tribalism and arrogance are the real cancers clotting that dream. When they used to elect a Pope or a Holy Roman Emperor to virtually rule the world in the Middle Ages, the practice was to have a poor monk, carrying blazing flax, run past the ornate ceremony screeching “ Sic transit gloria mundi”, loosely translated, “So fleeting is worldly glory”. For no sooner were the humbling words heard, the glorious fire became but smouldering ash.

Let’s start the real work not just of recovering but resetting the Jamaican political economy.

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney at law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com