EDITORIAL - The real lesson from Cassia Park

IT IS for Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to draw the wrong lesson from her party's defeat in last week's by-election for the Cassia Park division of the Kingston and St Andrew local government.

Conventional wisdom, as expressed by Andrew Holness, the leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), is that the vote represents a rejection of Mrs Simpson Miller and a repudiation of the economic policies being pursued by her Government.

The temptation, in the circumstances, may be for Mrs Simpson Miller, if she is too focused on the general election in three years' time, to cause her Government to retreat from the programme to which it is committed under its agreement with the International Monetary Fund and seek populist palliatives. That would be a mistake. It would worsen Jamaica's economic crisis and weaken the prospects for recovery.

In this respect, our suggestion to Mrs Simpson Miller is that she makes a larger, nationalistic, rather than politically expedient interpretation of the vote, and see it as an opportunity to address a major weakness of her premiership: a failure to take ownership of the economic programme.

First, though, from that standpoint of shoring up confidence among her party's supporters and organisers, Mrs Simpson Miller may remind herself that while her People's National Party (PNP) lost the election, the division has been traditionally safe for the JLP. The PNP won it in the context of a landslide two years ago.

Further, a mere 26 per cent of the potential voters cast ballots, and though the JLP's candidate gained 58 per cent of those who voted, that represented only 15 per cent of the division's register.

PM  must focus on economy

More critically, Mrs Simpson Miller must focus on the underlying cause of the economic stagnation that is at the root of voter discontent. Jamaica is overburdened by debt. It owes J$1.83 trillion, or around 50 per cent more than all the goods and services produced in the country.

Around 55 per cent of all the money we will earn from taxes and grants this fiscal year will go towards debt servicing. When public-sector wages are added to the debt-servicing costs, the Government's income is insufficient, by nearly 20 per cent, to cover the bill. The bottom line is that the Government has to borrow less and spend less, which means tough, politically unpopular action.

The Government is confronted not only by an economic crisis but by another of its own making: a failure of communication. It has failed to articulate the debt problem and the strategies necessary for a cure. More important, there is no sustained effort to mobilise Jamaicans in support of a clear policy/reform agenda, including initiatives that will drive economic growth.

This job is, fundamentally, the prime minister's. It is her responsibility to lead. Further, more than anyone else in Jamaican politics, she has the capacity to communicate with the majority of the Jamaican people, and possesses the emotional intelligence necessary to deliver a credible message.

We sense, though, that the prime minister would prefer to insulate herself from the difficulties of the time, hoping for others to be the bearers of bad tidings.

Mrs Simpson Miller, however, has an opportunity to be truly transformative. But she has to appreciate that that is not necessarily the same thing as being popular, or winning elections.

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