Fix it, Andrew, fix it!

by Din Duggan

I just heard that Parliament will be dissolved this week. I was so excited that I broke out that bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label I've been reserving for a special occasion - perhaps the birth of my first child, Independence 2012, or the 'Lime Tree Lane' reunion episode.

But alas, it was a false alarm. The dissolution is merely a formality in advance of the recently announced general election. Oh, well. I'll stick to Red Label Wine and Jagra for now.

So Andrew finally 'called it' - December 29 is election day. I can only imagine what will ensue when the holiday and silly seasons collide to form one explosive bag of madness. The fireworks have already begun. A man was shot and killed on Sunday night when an argument about the prime minister's speech turned deadly.

What a shame! More than 30 years after the brutal 1980 election cycle, one would imagine we would have evolved from such barbarity. Apparently not. Rest in peace, sir.

Same thing again

A few years ago, dancehall artiste Assassin bemoaned, in song, that "a the same thing again ... another nine-night, people block the road a defend them rights ... ghetto people struggles never end, and even though it's no money, a still more problem ... ." Yes, it's the same thing again. December 2011. Election violence. Grown men killing each other over political nonsense.

It was 1960-something when Sam Cooke crooned: "It's been a long time coming, but I know change gon' come." It was 2007 when Bruce Golding and the Bells belted a similar song of change. Their hymn book was the JLP manifesto. In it were countless ballads of the wondrous and amazing measures the JLP would implement to reform Jamaica - perhaps most pressing among them, at least for our long-term stability as a functioning liberal democracy, were the promised democratic reforms.

Yes, I remember those songs of freedom. They were all we really had. I fondly recall stanza 1: "Republican status - Take steps to amend the Constitution to replace the Queen with a Jamaican president ... . Such a president will be appointed by consensus through a two-thirds majority vote in each House of Parliament." Unfortunately, the only consensus we've seen is the two parties' apparent lack of respect for the Jamaican people.

Who could forget stanza 5: "Financing of political parties - Enact, in consultation with the Electoral Commission, legislation to regulate the financial operations of political parties." The JLP might be forgiven for not seriously getting around to this promise, as the party was preoccupied with urgent trips to Washington, DC, financed by shadowy party interests, to discuss private party matters.

Fix it

Today, the most relevant of the 2007 hits is perhaps the one found in stanza 23: "Fixed election period - Establish a fixed election period subject to variation only in specified circumstances."

After weeks of being treated like a ball of yarn in the paws of a kitten, Jamaicans must surely yearn for the fulfilment of this promise. A fixed date - or, say, the third Monday in January - would promote stability. It would discourage the perpetual game of political brinksmanship played under the current system. Local and international businesses could invest confidently, knowing that the Government will remain in power for a set time. Our international financial partners would be comforted by this knowledge. Most important, the Jamaican people would never again face the distinct misfortune of being forced to divide their attention between Santa Claus and circus clowns.

Portia and the Comrades haven't been very progressive on this issue, either. In 2002, then lead singer of the Comrades, P.J. Patterson, while himself toying with the electorate, argued that fixed elections deprive the people of the ability to recall a government which has lost the people's trust. Then Opposition Leader Eddie 'One Don' Seaga agreed, stating: "If a government chooses to be corrupt or incompetent or arouses the anger of the people, the current system which exists can bring down the government without having to wait for a special date."

After nearly 23 years of corrupt and incompetent governments, it appears that the variable election system is not a potential shackle to governments as politicians might argue, but is instead their own convenient tool of political engineering. The system is broken. So fix it, Andrew. Fix it. Let us not spend the next three or four or five years doing the same thing again.

Din Duggan is an attorney working as a consultant with a global legal search firm. Email him at columns@gleanerjm.com or dinduggan@gmail.com, or view his past columns at facebook.com/dinduggan and twitter.com/YoungDuggan.