PNP's crass hypocrisy

The Editor, Sir:

I should first declare my hand. On polling, I fit comfortably within the group of the so-called 'undecided'. I am uncommitted until election time, after I have heard and considered all the issues. Therefore, no party automatically gets my vote. In choosing my government, I do not rush to a decision that I may have to live with for the next five years.

In opposition, the People's National Party (PNP) has decided to play politics with Jamaica's future. At the recent CARICOM conference in Montego Bay, the party's leadership deemed it appropriate to boycott attendance of the conference, because they were unapproving of Prime Minister Golding's 'moral authority'.

For the PNP to suggest that on their own record they are more morally correct than the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), is simply crass hypocrisy. The PNP's absence at the CARICOM conference was intended chiefly to embarrass the prime minister at the expense of the country's business. That was unsophisticated and irresponsible behaviour to display for an international conference.

Members of an opposition party should conduct themselves with the decorum of a government in waiting, never as a maliciously obstructive force to destabilise democratic governance. Sometimes it is not what we do nor say, which is offensive, but how it's done, or how it is said which irks sensibilities.

On July 20, having decided to turn up in Parliament, and not stage another walkout, 18 PNP MPs, under direction from their leadership, unanimously abstained, with the effect to bring to an end to the state of emergency powers that had been reaping obvious dividends for the security of the country. In their orchestrated conduct to abstain from voting, the PNP put Jamaica's interest behind that of their own political posturing. As a result, criminals held up in their bolt holes must have breathed a sigh of relief to note the end of the state of emergency, while ordinary Jamaicans will have felt a loss of comfort.

Political muscle

With a recent downward trend in the murder statistics suggesting that at least 50 Jamaicans did not lose their lives over the last 40 days, because the state of emergency was in place, the PNP is on thin ice in picking this issue to flex its political muscle.

Say what you may about the justification for an ongoing state of emergency, but desperate times call for desperate measures when, purely on statistics, our beloved Jamaica is one of the most dangerous places on Earth for the risk of being murdered. How can such a small country, calling itself a peaceful nation, sustain in excess of 100 people being murdered each month? If we have become desensitised to these high numbers, or feel too far removed from the killing fields of the ghettos then, unfortunately, it says much about our national identity as current day Jamaicans.

I thought Bruce Golding was yesterday's news after the extradition debacle, but the PNP seems to be resolved that their time in o pposition should be spent reminding us, in a clumsy fashion, that things could be a lot worse.

I am, etc.,

HAMILTON DALEY

hamiltondaley@yahoo.com

Red Hills, St Andrew