As we enter another 'silly season'...

Monday, January 16, 2012

Election weary Jamaicans will by now be 'sucking teeth' at the realisation that following the intense campaign which preceded the December 29 parliamentary poll, they will in all likelihood have to deal with another "silly season" in the first quarter of this year.

We refer, of course, to the Local Government Elections which, barring yet another intervention by Parliament, are due by the end of March.

It seems likely the new People's National Party Government will be highly motivated to quickly get the local elections behind it, given that its first budget, which will inevitably include unpopular measures, is due in April.

Historically, only the large, committed base of the two political parties pay great attention to parish council elections. That does not seem likely to change this time around. Also, if we are to go by history, local elections so soon after a parliamentary poll usually favour the governing party, since Opposition supporters are often demotivated.

In those circumstances, just as the turnout for the December 29 poll was extremely disappointing, with just over half those eligible bothering to vote, we should not be surprised if that for the upcoming elections is a historic low.

Of course, should the new Government quickly find itself struggling, or worse, in the stormy waters ahead, the JLP base could very rapidly re-energise, in which case all the usual expectations could be thrown out.

Inevitably, we suspect, there will be another round of discussion regarding the relevance of parish councils as they currently exist. For while in theory at least, local government representation deepens the democratic process, there is a sense that such representation is under-funded, increasingly marginalised and irrelevant despite sporadic moves at reform down the years.

To make matters worse, much of the local government bureaucracy is perceived in the public domain as unwieldy, inefficient and corrupt.

There has been occasional talk that parish councils should be scrapped and replaced by adequately supported professional parish managers with parliamentary and central government oversight — subject to dismissal should their work and accountability fall below par. It's not a suggestion that should be dismissed out of hand.

That aside though, we must now prepare — in short order — for another day at the polls. From the perspective of the security forces the good thing is that the recent campaign is being described as among the most peaceful ever. As far as this newspaper is aware there were no violent deaths directly linked to the campaign.

The security forces must remain absolutely vigilant. And as they did to an admirable extent — despite the odd glitch — in the recent campaign, the two major political parties must ensure that partisan tensions remain at an absolute minimum.

Also, as we said repeatedly in the build-up to December 29, in the interest of public order there needs to be greater attention to the behaviour of supporters on the roads during election campaigns.

Finally, it behooves all of us to bear in mind that this is the winter tourist season, the peak period in arrivals. The last thing this struggling economy needs is travel advisories warning of danger to personal safety in Jamaica because of elections.

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As we enter another 'silly season'...