Letter of the Day | Abolish the Westminster system
Published:Wednesday | September 9, 2020 | 12:13 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
The People’s National Party (PNP) was destroyed primarily because of the nature of Jamaica’s democracy.
What do I mean by that?
The Westminster system of democracy bequeathed to Jamaica by England is terribly flawed and needs to be changed.
In the Westminster system, leadership is determined by succession, much like what happens with the royal family in England.
It is not as damaging in England, since the whole idea of royalty, as primitive as it is, is also largely symbolic and has very little bearing on the well-being and quality of life of the British people as a whole.
In Jamaica, this is not the case. We have a supremely primitive system impacting profoundly the lives of the Jamaican people.
The wise thing to do is to change it! Leadership should be determined by merit and merit alone.
The PNP was destroyed primarily because of ambition and aspirations. The jockeying to assume the leadership mantle is the primary reason why the PNP has failed so miserably.
This shouldn’t be so.
It is not a bad thing to have ambition and aspirations – after all, isn’t that what our fathers and mothers told us, to have ambition – but there must be a balance.
The Americans saw the flaw in this Westminster system centuries ago, the geniuses that their founding fathers were, and steered clear of it.
Now Jamaica’s democracy, with a decimated opposition, is threatened because of it.
AMERICAN-STYLE REPUBLIC
Additionally, an entire party can be moving in the wrong direction and, believe it or not, one person can steer it in the right direction. We need to empower individuals of goodwill to do so.
As it is now, people with goodwill within a party have to suppress their instinct to do the right thing, in accordance with the misguided idea that they need to conform and not rock the boat.
That must change!
We would do well as a nation to adopt America’s Republican style of democracy. Yes, Jamaica needs to become an American-style Republic.
If we do this, we create presidential primaries capable of winnowing out and discovering the best leaders from all walks of life within our entire society – based not on age, not on succession, but on talent and abilities only, and we shouldn’t have to lose a party to do so.
PAUL HAYE