EDITORIAL - The thoughtful must assert themselves

Mr Joseph Matalon's statement on behalf of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) is, hopefully, only the beginning.

His must now be joined by the voices of other private-sector and civil-society leaders and generally well-thinking Jamaicans, marking out the issues they expect to be thoughtfully addressed by Jamaica's political parties in the campaign for the general election that seems imminent.

Indeed, it is conventional wisdom that Mr Andrew Holness, soon to succeed Mr Bruce Golding as both prime minister and leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), will attempt to take advantage of the bounce in the JLP's popularity because of his ascendancy and go to the polls before it dissipates. No one could fault Mr Holness for employing this old political tactic.

Where we would complain is if Mr Holness, and the leadership of the Opposition People's National Party (PNP), play the old political game of rallying their bases while seeking to entice others easily susceptible to populist messages. That is democracy's equivalent of distributing beads and trinkets. Which is the tendency of the JLP and PNP.

However, as we have previously said, while this strategy of cacophonous blankness may be the easy way for the parties, most times, to choose their leaders and win elections, it is not a sound platform from which to govern. Indeed, a great failure of Jamaican political leadership, manifested in our crisis of governance and poor social and economic outcomes, has been its inability, for more than a generation, to forge the necessary alliance that encourages the country's best minds to participate in national management.

And, but for recently, angered by, and fearful of, the implications of the Coke extradition saga, this excluded group did not push back. They accepted their marginalisation.

Grave economic situation

However, Jamaica faces a crisis that is, in many respects, far more acute than the Coke affair, that is, the state of the economy. This problem is highlighted, among other things, by the country's debt, which is 130 per cent of national output, whose servicing the Government cannot manage. The consequence is deteriorating public infrastructure, rising unemployment, increasing poverty, and more.

The problem can grow worse if Jamaica does not act with urgency and toughness. Think Greece, absence the support of the eurozone countries.

In this regard, the PSOJ's Mr Matalon has stepped forward with a campaign agenda for the parties, in particular the issues that ought not be dismissed in a sort of partisan field game.

These include the rehabilitation of the faltered standby agreement with the International Monetary Fund; the overhaul of the public sector, including restructuring the pension scheme for state employees; tax reform; and the consolidation and advancement gains in crime reduction in the post-Coke era.

Politicians are unlikely to speak frankly about these serious issues in the cloudy, pungent atmosphere of the hustings, when they are being egged on by mostly disoriented partisans, hyped by the day's inducement and anticipating tomorrow's spoils, unassured they may be.

Thoughtful Jamaicans who are outside this matrix must insist on being heard. They must stand up for a serious discourse and a better-managed Jamaica rather than allow the political hard core to have it all their own way.