Wishing the new Government well

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Elections always provide plentiful food for thought and analysis.

In that respect, few Jamaican elections could have bettered Thursday's.

Against all reasonable expectations and in the face of opinion polls suggesting the elections would be neck and neck, the People's National Party (PNP) won by almost a two-one seat majority: 41-22 according to the preliminary results.

Such was the magnitude of the defeat for the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which has become the first one-term Government in the history of modern Jamaica, that — pending the result of recounts — at least two former Cabinet ministers lost their seats.

Further, less than half of the 1.6 million people who were registered bothered to vote. That's an astounding statistic that should worry not just the JLP but the PNP as well.

Obviously, the JLP will be asking itself what it was about its four-year-old administration that could have so turned off Jamaicans.

It seems clear, as JLP spokesmen have themselves conceded, that the atrocious handling of the issues surrounding the extradition of former West Kingston 'don' Mr Christopher 'Dudus' Coke hurt the party badly. Hard as they tried, the JLP, which came to power in 2007 trumpeting the promise of transparency and good governance, could not seem to shake the suggestion that not just former Prime Minister Mr Bruce Golding and a few around him, but the entire Government betrayed the public trust.

Then, as elections approached, came the fall-out from the alleged misuse of funds associated with the more than US$400 million road programme, the Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP). It would not have helped that even as the scandal escalated and elections approached, the surfaces of many of Jamaica's main roads were as scarred and scoured as they have ever been.

There were other issues of course. The several spats with public sector workers, including teachers and police, over salary and other issues, and allegations of arrogance and high-handedness would have hurt the Government.

The breakdown in the relationship with multi-lateral lender, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will also have undermined confidence.

But at the bottom line, it seems to us, 'bread and butter' issues would have most hurt the JLP. For while outgoing Prime Minister Andrew Holness and other Government spokesmen spoke glowingly of their success in maintaining macro-economic stability in the face of the worst global economic recession since the 1930s, they seemed to gloss over the immediate plight of the poorest among us.

The truth is that even without resort to official statistics, poverty levels are intolerably high. This in a context in which — with all due respect to the PATH programme — there is woefully inadequate social safety provision. In the eyes of many Jamaicans, suggesting that the problems of impoverishment and unemployment will be addressed when sustainable economic growth is achieved simply wasn't good enough or immediate enough.

It is in that context that the PNP's proposal for an emergency employment programme would surely have gained resonance. We have heard from the PNP that it will seek to more creatively use funds from the Tourism Enhancement Fund and also seek to renegotiate with the Chinese in terms of the use of JDIP funds for projects that are labour intensive.

It's now left to the PNP to put more 'meat on the bones' in terms of how this job programme is to be executed in a context of demands by the international lenders for expenditure cuts and economic austerity. We wish the new Government well.

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Water woes to affect sections of St Catherine and the Corporate Area

Wishing the new Government well