EDITORIAL: PNP must also preach to itself

The pulpit sometimes has a powerful effect on persons who stand in front of it. It may imbue the speaker with a perceived moral authority to point out motes in the eyes of congregants - oblivious to the beam in his own - and invoke the wrath of God on those deemed to have committed abominable acts.

And the funny old thing with politics is that parliamentarians, like some parsons, are no less likely to see a halo hovering above them and feel a rush of the Spirit down their spine when they are about to preach.

But as cultural icon Miss Lou suggested in her timeless poem 'Uriah Preach', the 'preacher' sometimes uses the opportunity to unleash a fusillade of invectives in a bid to shame the listeners and engage in narcissistic embellishment.

Take, for example, the People's National Party (PNP). In a statement to the press Thursday, the PNP waxed eloquent in its condemnation of the Government and the ruling Jamaica Labour Party, which have both been criticised in these columns for their shameful machinations in delaying the extradition of the criminal overlord, Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.

Said the PNP: "[The guilty plea] now makes it abundantly clear that the JLP administration has extraordinarily poor judgement and lacks the moral authority to continue to govern this country. The vicious nature of Coke's behaviour and activities as described in the motion have long been known by the law enforcement community, and even more so by the JLP administration."

On this the PNP is correct.

For public sentiment is that most Jamaicans had clearly come to accept that Tivoli Gardens - the militarised headquarters of the Shower Posse and its later incarnation, the Presidential Click - was an informal republic. Indeed, as much as Mr Bruce Golding was the prime minister and the parliamentary representative for West Kingston, it was common knowledge that 'Dudus' was the 'President'.

incestuous politicking

In a complicated and apparently incestuous commingling of state and party functionaries, the Government dithered on the extradition request for nine months before signing, under pressure from the United States and civil-society groups here, the authority to proceed, leading to bloody firefights in sections of Kingston and the eventual capture and handover of Coke to the US.

But the PNP is suffering from a bout of convenient amnesia. For Coke's empire blossomed under PNP administrations from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s. Coke, once a director of a construction company called Incomparable Enterprises, received lucrative government contracts, which endowed the mobster with the veneer of legitimacy, under which he operated as 'businessman' and 'philanthropist'. The racketeer was also Tivoli's enforcer.

Notwithstanding the PNP's moralising, it does not mean the PNP is moral. For that party cannot claim ignorance to Dudus' might in West Kingston and to the tortuous criminal tentacles which stretched across Jamaica.

The PNP's sermonising also implicates Jamaica's security forces. For even though, as the party claims, Dudus was well known to be the 'don of dons' in the 'mother of all garrisons', the police and army failed to use their intelligence and firepower to uproot him before 2010. Coke, in the end, was ousted because his ego drove him to believe in his own lore that he was an untouchable 'President'.

It is to Jamaica's shame that the State, with all its power, turned a blind eye for so long. It is to Jamaica's shame that a foreign state forced us to face our demons.

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