Editorial | A campaign reset, please

With fewer than 10 days before they vote on September 3, Jamaicans, hopefully, will, tonight, begin to hear policy with substance, and clarity, in an election campaign that is likely to cost many dearly with their health, and, possibly, loss of life.

For during the fortnight of electioneering since Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced the poll, there has been, until yesterday’s launch of their manifestos, an absence of specificity from Mr Holness’ Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), as well as the People’s National Party (PNP), about their intention for the next period of government, and how they plan to stabilise a topsy-turvy economy.

Therefore, this newspaper, and, we believe, voters, will pay close attention to the presentations of the six candidates who will represent the parties in tonight’s first of the three election debates. In that regard, Christopher Tufton, Kamina Johnson Smith, and Floyd Green, on behalf of the Government, and Raymond Pryce, Dayton Campbell, and Lisa Hanna for the PNP must offer more than sound bites, platitudes, or exchanges of vitriol.

The debate is to be about social issues, a wide and complex remit that is even more problematic given the environment in which this election is being held: the coronavirus pandemic and the impact that it is having on the world’s, and, perforce, Jamaica’s economy.

MATTERS ON THE AGENDA

Before the outbreak of this global epidemic, Jamaica’s economy, after nearly eight years of adjustments, enjoyed relative stability. The Government’s Budget was balanced; the debt, as a proportion of GDP, was falling; inflation, in the context of Jamaica, was low; and unemployment had declined. This, however, did not mean that we were out of the woods. Critically, economic growth remained stubbornly anaemic.

With regard to the matters that would be expected to be on tonight’s agenda, crime, with more than 1,000 homicides annually, is an issue of major concern. A related issue is how large swathes of the population live – nearly a third in informal or squatter communities and many more in decayed urban communities. Additionally, the education system, with vast disparities in the quality of schools, underperforms. An estimated one-third of students enter the primary system not properly stimulated to absorb education; a similar proportion start their secondary schooling ill-prepared for the transition. Further, only a fifth of students who write the recognised secondary school-leaving exams annually perform at levels to matriculate to university.

These, and more, are issues that will confront the new Government – but about which there was insufficient or substantive discussion by the parties over the past fortnight, despite now being highlighted, or alluded to in their manifestos as matters to be addressed.

TWO FACTORS

Two factors are important in any debate at this time on how these problems are to be solved. The first is what a government will do differently than in the past. The issues, after all, are not new. Jamaican governments have grappled with them for decades. Some, most notably crime, have grown worse rather than better. The second is the changed global circumstance of the past eight months since the onset of the novel coronavirus.

The lockdowns and other actions taken by governments to slow the spread of the virus – which has already killed more than 800,000 people across the world – has thrown the global economy into a tailspin. World output is expected to decline by more than three per cent this year. In Jamaica, the gross domestic product is projected to decline by nearly six per cent, dragged down by the near total collapse of the tourism sector. The more optimistic outlooks are for the island’s economy to return to pre-COVID-19 levels in two to three years.

This raises several fundamental issues relevant to tonight’s debate, and, for that matter, the entire campaign. For instance, there is the question of whether the policy options now on the table are affordable, or if it is urgent that they be executed, how they are to be financed. In other words, the debate must include a discussion about cost and adjusted priorities. Another matter, made stark by the new wave of COVID-19 cases, likely to be made worse by the indiscipline and irresponsibility in the conduct of the campaign, must be how Jamaica will not just contain the coronavirus, but thrive, economically and socially, despite it.

Perhaps after the bacchanal, the campaign can be reset tonight to seriousness.