Country ready for December elections

Thursday, November 17, 2011

There is growing speculation that Prime Minister Andrew Holness will announce the nomination and election dates either at the 68th annual general conference of the JLP this Sunday, or shortly thereafter.

We acknowledge that he will have to be guided by timelines mandated by law and we expect that he will act on sound legal advice.

It is our hope, though, that Mr Holness will be legally able to call the vote for December, as we are sensing a growing mood in the country that we need to have the electioneering, which is now on in earnest, over and done with.

For starters, long election campaigns are never desirable in Jamaica, given the high polarisation of the country and the proclivity of the misguided political sycophants among us for violence. We remember well the almost year-long election campaign in 1980 which led to at least 800 recorded deaths.

It's a dark chapter in our history which we do not wish to see repeated.

To be fair, the country has, since then, done well in significantly reducing violent incidents at election time. However, we are not yet out of the woods, as there still exists among some political party supporters an intolerance for opposing views that sometimes morphs into acts of violence.

We feel, though, that a lot of that behaviour will be tempered in the weeks leading up to Christmas, for Jamaicans have always exhibited a softer, more humane spirit during what is regarded as the season of good cheer.

As a country with serious economic problems, we also have to temper our politics to ensure that it serves our national well-being. In this respect, we would not want to have this heightened expectation of elections running through our winter tourism season.

Cautious travellers prefer to wait out perceived danger in any part of the globe. Even now world tourism has not yet fully recovered from the effects of 9/11 when terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Centre building and the Pentagon in the United States.

Unfortunately, Jamaica has a reputation for violence and even though murders have dropped by an estimated 40 per cent, it takes longer to remove that perception of us as a violent nation. It takes just one election death, flashed internationally by the big networks, to reinforce this image.

But even more important, we believe, is the fact that the country needs to settle down and continue with the job of correcting the economy that was devastated for more than a decade by bad policies.

There are serious and tough decisions to be taken by the next administration in that regard, and whichever party forms the Government will need to start the new year fully focused on the task at hand.

We have well established precedents in holding general elections in the month of December. For example, then Prime Minister Michael Manley called elections for December 15, 1976 and then Prime Minister Edward Seaga did so for December 15, 1983.

From the soundings in the business community, there are no serious concerns about elections adversely affecting business during the Yuletide Season. On the contrary, election activities are likely to put more money into circulation during the heightened shopping period.

The country is primed and ready for December elections. It's your call, Mr Prime Minister.

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GCT to go down, white rum prices going up

Country ready for December elections