The Squinting Prime Minister

Beneath an overcast sky and amid the looming threat of rain, the prime minister, radiant in yellow, officially opened the Jamaica International Invitational meet at the National Stadium last Saturday evening.

Following a brief address, heavy on commendations to various people, the prime minister left the stage to return to her seat in the grandstand. Looking on from my vantage at the media centre, I waited to see if the prime minister would do it under very wet conditions at the stadium. After a few steps on the red carpet, which led from the inside of the running track to the stage, she did indeed do it.

The prime minister broke into a sprint, leaving her minders behind. Tall, upright and with shoulders erect, the prime minister zoomed along the red carpet, skipped on to the track and, with arms pumping, zipped across the surface. Despite the wet conditions and probably against the wishes of her assistants, who would've advised against using the run on this occasion, the prime minister, ever keen to show her fitness, sprightliness and vivacity, had no intention of simply ambling back to her seat.

In conditions which would've discouraged persons way younger than her 67 years from even breaking into a jog, the prime minister wasn't going to be restrained from facing the grandstand crowd and putting on a show for them. In that moment, she proved that under all conditions, she is, indeed, the Sprinting Prime Minister.

Above reproach

The prime minister is a first-class human being, caregiver and empathiser. We know from the testimony of countless persons that there are few more loyal and supportive friends you can have. We know from her own testimony that she's never one to allow friendship, kinship or clanship to obstruct principle. Especially those principles which she iterated to the nation in her two inaugural speeches as prime minister in 2006 and, more recently, in 2012.

It's precisely because we know these things why we find it difficult to understand the prime minister's decision to keep Richard Azan in the Government's employ as a state minister.

For a woman who has been praised to the high heavens and criticised to the gutters, there's one thing that has never been said - nor perhaps can ever be said - about the prime minister. It surely has not been by accident that in a marathon career which began in 1974, there has never been any link between this prime minister and corruption. Nor have there been allegations of malfeasance or maladministration levelled against the lady.

You would even be hard-pressed to find an instance where in the management of public resources or property, the prime minister, in her other roles as parish councillor, minister or MP, was ever accused of showing the kind of rank bad judgement to which Azan has publicly admitted. She obviously knows the benefit of a stainless, scandal-free record, yet is curiously and disappointingly accommodating a man who violates those principles which have been exemplars of her own career.

SUPPORTING THE 'AZAN PRINCIPLE'

The prime minister has always stayed above the fray when her party has gone after opposition members accused of corruption or implicated in scandals. You never hear her referring to those persons by name or even to their specific circumstances. That's a smart approach, especially where she has a stable with a few colts and many geldings, champing at the bit to trample all over vulnerable political rivals.

Given her public comments on the Azan matter and the crafty use of various investigations to stay his excommunication from the roll of state ministers, the time has passed for the prime minister to defend principle. What the dear lady has already done is to unwittingly establish the Azan Principle, which may guide how similar or attendant matters are dealt with by bosses and their subordinates.

By the time the findings of the various probes are read by her and the announcement from the Office of the Prime Minister that Azan has escaped scot-free has been sent to the media, principle would've already been defeated. And Portia Simpson Miller, a principled woman, confronted by the glare of Azan's poor judgement, could become known as the Squinting Prime Minister.

Selah.

George Davis is a journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and george.s.davis@hotmail.com.