ONLY a compulsive gambler would wager that anything of substance will come out of the probe by deputy commissioner of police, Lucius Thomas, into the allegations of tainted money levelled by Jamaica Labour Party leader, Edward Seaga, against the successful campaign by James Robertson to become one of his deputies.

Since Seaga now says he is satisfied that no taint is attached to any of the $5 million the Robertson campaign raised to defeat his protégée Olivia 'Babsie' Grange, he can hardly be expected to provide any leads that can be of much help to the investigators. Except, of course, there could be the million to one chance that a donor known to the JLP hierarchy as 'Mister Clean' may not look the same way to police officers who may have much greater knowledge of the laundry business. But that's unlikely.

What's more likely is that much of the press will continue to criticise Seaga for making allegations which he has to withdraw for lack of evidence and for his ungracious interference into the fledgling democratic workings within the JLP.

Whatever happens at today's elections to fill out the remaining leadership positions in the party, it cannot mask the deep wounds inflicted by the party leader's utterances at what should have been a celebratory 60th anniversary conference two weeks ago.

Much of the press have been labelling the defeat of the Seaga 'loyalists' as a triumph for the 'reformist' without offering any evidence that the reform programme outlined by Bruce Golding, when a candle led him back home into the JLP, has found any resonance at any level in the party. The 'memorandum of understanding' on important reform issues like separation of powers, term limits and the dismantling of garrison politics has not been part of the debate. Not even Golding mentions them.

As with the other fratricidal squabbles in the JLP, this struggle is not about reform. It's between those who want to 'retain' and those who want to 'remove' Seaga as leader because they don't believe the JLP will again see the inside of Jamaica House under his leadership. The difference, this time, is that the campaign is not to challenge Seaga head-on, but to ring-fence him with deputies and officers not of his own choosing. Thus, isolated, he may depart the arena. Seaga remains the target, no doubt about it.

It may or may not work. What's clearer, in the words of a Gleaner editorial of November 20 is that "the wrangling" in the JLP "will continue fort sometime yet". Amidst the sea of negative press, one of the few comments that the wounded JLP leader might have found comforting was a cartoon which had him dancing to the 'wicked tune' by Prince Buster: 'You pick him up; You lick him down; Him bounce right back; What a hard man fi dead'.

But whatever happens between the 'retainers' and the 'removers', Seaga has placed on the agenda of public debate the need for reform of campaign financing, both within parties and for national election campaigns--an issue that has been taken up editorially by both the Observer and the Gleaner and has been the subject of at least one television discussion, CVM Question Time, and on radio news magazines.

The JLP has established a committee chaired by the party treasurer Chris Bovell to report on the matter and it was supposed to be on the agenda of the PNP retreat in Ocho Rios this weekend, so both parties take it seriously because--as I understand it--there is real fear that drug money could undermine our democracy if it gets to determine who is in and who is out.

The answer, among other things, is for new rules allowing direct financial contributions from the state and to keep expenses in check.

Reform has been going in many parts of the world, including most European countries, Canada and the United States where the process is under-pinned by Buckley v Valeo, the landmark 1976 Supreme Court decision on campaign finance law. The Supreme Court upheld the disclosure requirements in the law, the contribution limits, and the provision for public funding of presidential election campaigns. The Court found that: "To the extent that large contributions are given to secure a political quid pro quo from current and potential office holders, the integrity of our system of representative democracy is undermined."

The press must continue to probe how the campaign financing reform may be addressed in Jamaica. Given that we already have an Electoral Advisory Committee that has a well-deserved reputation for cleaning out much of the corruption from elections, it would not be a huge leap to agree to have that body handle the matter, certainly at the level of the independent members.

The tasks would be to set limits on campaign spending, monitor contributions to the parties from individuals and corporations, and where appropriate make financial contributions to the political parties. Given the high cost of elections, the parlous state of the public purse and the low esteem in which politicians are held by many Jamaicans, it will not be easy to get agreement on public funding of elections.

Estimates of spending in the 2002 general elections suggested that the major parties, the JLP and the ruling PNP, each spent on average of $3 million per constituency. With 60 constituencies this estimate translates to $180 million per party or $360 million for the election

This figure does not include advertising and media costs. No official spending records are available, but discussions with key media industry and political sources suggest that the overall cost of media placement (newspapers, radio and television) in 2002 was in the region of $200 million to $250 million.

So, the overall spend for campaigning at the constituency level and for media advertising bill could well be in excess of $600 million for the two major parties alone. And any reform would have to find a mechanism for treating third parties on a non-discriminatory basis.

We have had some degree of co-operation, at least on advertising, before. In the 1993 general elections--the last election of the JBC-TV era--the Corporation (which I headed at the time) developed an advertising protocol with the major parties. Among other things, they agreed to an upper limit of 30 spots a day on radio and 20 on TV.

The JBC, for its part, offered five free broadcasts on TV and eight on radio to each of the major parties as well as full coverage of all public appearances by each party leader.

One result was that the 1993 election was the only one in which the party in opposition did not accuse the Corporation of bias towards the ruling party.

Now we have a much more vibrant, competitive and commercially-driven media structure so it is very unlikely that a media house would place restraints on what it can earn on political advertising. But if taxpayers are going to be asked to pay for electioneering, then there will have to be limits on the cost of elections.

A radical way of reducing such costs, of course, would be to have local and general elections at the same time. It could save hundreds of millions in campaign costs, media, EAC costs, police and security costs--not to mention what the political parties have to spend on T-shirts, transportation and curry goat.

So, as the media engages the debate over campaign spending it must be mindful that its judgement is not clouded by the prospect of losing big advertising bucks if we finally get a handle on a spending train. We have to check we-self before we wreck we-self.

Milestones:

This column joins the media fraternity in paying tribute to a true original, Clyde Hoyte, one of the pioneers of Jamaican broadcasting and a source of patriotic inspiration to generations of Jamaicans.

We also note the recent passing of one of the less known, but a real rock stone of the JBC, Horace A Cardoza, a broadcast engineer, who was known to JBC originals as 'Raguzar', the 'Man from the Hills'--a reference to the fact that he was almost always at the Wareika Hills site in East Kingston monitoring BBC , Armed Forces radio and other international short-wave broadcasts for stories for JBC newscasts.

That was before 'satellite' and 'digital' became commonplace and anyone, anywhere, is in instant touch with anyone, anywhere, anytime. It was a time when human ingenuity had a coax temperamental equipment through unpredictable weather to get an audible signal so that listeners could actually get past the static and crackle to the news. Cardoza was the best at that business!

In March 1964, he migrated to the United States as one of the pioneers in what was to become a veritable flood of former JBC and RJR broadcast engineers to make their mark at the United Nations and the major broadcast networks in New York. He retired from ABC in the early 90s and moved to South Florida where he died recently at the age of 73.

Personally, I can never forget the morning of 22 November, 1963, when his voice came through to the newsroom on the two-way radio. "President Kennedy get shot". It changed the news day, and history!

* Claude Robinson is Senior Fellow in the Research and Policy Group, Mona School of Business at UWI. kcr@cwjamaica.com

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