Danville's walk, Sharon's hazy step

Ian Boyne, Contributor

The fact that Danville Walker has now decided to support a JLP being led by a new, much younger leader in whom much hope is reposed by many does not mean, logically, that Danville Walker was always a Labourite.

We must stop demonising politics, politicians, and political engagement, though there are plenty of demonic politicians.

Danville Walker has stepped into a sea of controversy since news leaked that he, Mr Clean, has decided to enter the murky waters of representational politics. That he has decided to do so when two other high-profile public-sector heads, Joan Gordon-Webley and Camile Buchanan, are also heading in that direction has added current to the raging waters.

Talk-show host Ronald Mason, on Nationwide's 'On the Agenda', has been waging a ceaseless battle against Walker's candidacy, arguing that a former director of elections should not, with such indecent haste, rush to support one of the political tribes. Mason has been engaging in a substantial amount of retrospective speculation on Danville's actions as director of elections, taking daredevil risks with logic and making an art of surmising. Every error that Danville might have made as director of elections, taking daredevil risks with logic and making an art of surmising. Every error that Danville might have made as director of elections, and especially his patently disastrous and foolhardy advice which led to the dual-citizenship challenges, can now be attributed to a closet Labourite masquerading in independent clothing.
Mason and I share, I believe, a scepticism about Jamaican politics and disillusionment with it. I believe, contrary to misguided and mindless tribalists on both sides, that Mason is genuinely non-partisan and is an arguably certified independent analyst. And he's also great for radio, histrionics and all. But his reasoning on the Danville Walker issue - and many support him - seems flawed to me.

First, the fact that Danville Walker has now decided to support a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) being led by a new, much younger leader in whom much hope is reposed by many does not mean, logically, that Danville Walker was always a Labourite. That he has now decided to enter politics does not mean that he saw his job as director of elections as a stepping stone to that position. All of this is non-sequitur reasoning - if it can be called 'reasoning'.

defying logic

To retrospectively assign actions to present-day realities violates the fundamental rules of Aristotelian logic. Danville Walker could well have had JLP DNA. He could have been a plant at the Electoral Commission. He could have been all that and more - and we could add any amount of speculations to the list, but multiplying it would not make the allegations any more provable or even probable. We cannot simply move seamlessly from assertion to fact.

So to say that Walker's going into politics now necessarily brings into question his actions in the past is nonsense. At least one caller phoned Mason to demonstrate concretely, in at least three cases, where Walker's actions and initiatives were directly injurious to JLP interests in past electoral contests.

But what about the case for some defined term under which one should not offer himself for representational politics after holding certain critical posts? A case could conceivably be made, but this is purely hypothetical, as in Walker's actual case there is no such prohibition or limitation. But what about the moral case? Well, let's discuss that.

In my view, there is considerable naivety and lack of depth in discussing issues of integrity. I keep going back to many people's lack of grounding in sound philosophical principles in arguing ethical issues. Ethics is a philosophical issue and has to be approached with sophistication and rigour.

At the heart of the issue involving Danville Walker is that of integrity. If Danville Walker were a person of integrity as director of elections; if he held firm to ethical principles and was a moral absolutist, even if he were a Labourite at heart, he would still carry out his work as director of elections impartially, fairly and ethically.

One does not have to be purged of all opinions and be an automaton to be a person of integrity. We are arguing the wrong things. What we really need are people of integrity; people who hold firmly and absolutely to certain non-negotiable principles and ethical standards and who have the moral discipline to master their own impulses and dispositions in the service of their principles.

Even if you legislate that a director of elections cannot enter representational politics until 15 years after his service, there is no guarantee that those years would have made him invulnerable to corruption if he is not an ethical person. One understands that when one holds certain positions in Government where, say, one has considerable influence over business, finance, etc., it makes sense to have strict limits on engagement of service after one leaves those posts to protect against people's consciously using their position to influence their future job prospects. But not every post in the public sector has those features.

dispel suspicion

People are not saying that Joan Gordon-Webley and Camile Buchanan should have waited years after resigning their public sector posts before entering politics. They are simply saying once you have signalled your intention to run, you should leave, for you don't want to be clouded by any suspicion that you are using your positions of public trust to gain political advantage.

But with the post of director of elections, what I understand Mason and others to be saying is that that position is so integrity-sensitive, ethically bound that one should never have to entertain the possibility that our current director of elections could one day be on a ballot paper. So let me ask Mason and others: Are they naïve enough to believe that because Orrett Fisher cannot vote as director that he does not have any political views and might not even favour one political party strongly - just because the law forbids him to vote? Do they think one can legislate integrity?

The fact that Fisher or any future director of elections is barred from voting and taking part in political activities now or in the future does not mean that they could not be as partisan to the bone as any rabble-rousing tribalist. It's an integrity issue, not one of form. A person of integrity, a person of morally grounded principles, would have the discipline to hold his own strongly held positions and have his own preferences and carry out his public responsibilities with fairness, equanimity and impartiality.

The problem in our morally deficient society is that we don't pay serious attention to ethical grounding. We are mostly crude pragmatists, rugged individualists who believe only in our own passions and pleasures. We elevate passions over principles and enjoyment over ethics. We are a profoundly amoral people. And so we are understandably suspect of anyone who veers from what is commonplace.

I have no problem in accepting that Danville Walker could be an independent, impartial, ethical, fair person, carrying out his duties with the utmost scrupulousness as director of elections. The man leaves that position and decides that he wants to serve his country in another capacity. Danville Walker has had a passion for pubic service. He could have had far more lucrative jobs in Jamaica and overseas in the private sector, but he has chosen to serve in a particular way.

honourable service

I am a political agnostic and so could never be interested in joining any of the two tribes. I am too intellectually independent and rebellious to follow any party line. But for others, political service can be honourable and noble. Someone of proven ability and accomplishment like Danville Walker should not be deprived of this level of service - and the country should not be deprived of his potential service because of any faulty and fallacious reasoning which suggests that only political virgins or archangels can hold certain posts.

The country needs the best skills and competencies to pull us out of the rut we are in and to face all the challenges ahead. We don't have enough talent to waste it by erecting needless barriers to progress. If the People's National Party (PNP) and others can prove that Walker is corrupt, that he used his position at Customs or while he was director of elections to advance his own or the JLP's cause, then it is in the interest of the nation that that be brought out. Bring out the dirt on Danville Walker if there is dirt. Don't protect him. If he is not as clean as he has projected and has led many to believe, let's expose him. And if the JLP does not have the integrity to pull back from him, I hope people of integrity in Central Manchester will vote against him.

But raising phantom arguments will not do. A man of integrity, of probity, could decide two years from the expiry of his contract as director of elections that he would enter representational politics or take up a ministerial post with a political party after, and still carry out his duties flawlessly and meticulously. Integrity and moral excellence are not conditional or statute-bound.

And, on the matter of integrity and ethics, this is where Sharon Hay-Webster falls down badly. I have always liked Sharon personally and have had only positive interactions with her. I have always found her pleasant and comradely. But her actions in the dual-citizenship case leaves much to be desired. Now it could be argued, as some have agreed with her, that her case is different from the others. I hope the court will have a chance to decide that. But my view is that she should have saved her party then, the PNP, the profound embarrassment it endured and she should have done what she has only now, through expediency and personal interest, decided to do.

Portia Simpson Miller was right to stand on principle and not on any shallow premise of 'female solidarity' and to have pressed her to renounce her citizenship. If she felt 'betrayed' by Portia and others because of their tough and ethical stance, so be it. The PNP was right on this one and has absolutely no reason to feel ashamed by Sharon's crossing last week .The shame is entirely hers - and the JLP's.

One JLP politician friend of mine shouted in my ears, "What nonsense about integrity? You middle-class people talk about credibility. You think the things that concern you concern the ordinary man in the street? You think many people reading your newspapers and listening to your news?"

That's the problem: There is too much crude pragmatism, too much contempt for principles.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and ianboyne1@yahoo.com.