We must do better in selecting party candidates

Monday, October 31, 2011

POLITICAL parties are not recognised by the Jamaican Constitution but as we all know, they are at the very core of the style of democracy and governance practised in this country.

That’s why the delicate issue of political party funding is of such vital importance and must be dealt with as a matter of urgency. Until there are formal, transparent and enforceable rules governing how and from whom money flows to political parties, there is the danger of our elected representatives and leaders falling captive to vested and even sinister interests.

That aside though, the current talk about candidate selection ahead of apparently fast approaching parliamentary elections reminds us that as originally conceived, our two major political parties were not just organisations to contest political power but were meant as mediums for people representation. Also, as this newspaper understands it, they were intended as training grounds for political leadership.

In theory, the virtues and flaws of potential leaders will have been probed and explored as individuals with leadership ambitions seek to impress at the community and small-group level through the People’s National Party’s (PNP’s) group structure and the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP’s) branch system.

In cases where the group and branch structures work well, the best leaders from the community level are promoted naturally by dint of their own performance and recognition of such by those whom they serve.

That, we submit, is among the reasons so many teachers — who because of the necessities of their job should naturally be community leaders — have come into elected governance over the last seven decades of modern Jamaican politics.

In theory, it seems to this newspaper, the ideal form of candidate selection should involve a structured movement by aspirants up through the ranks of a political party and constituency organisation.

Of course, as we all know, the cases have been numerous down the years and apparently increasingly so, of persons being taken from elsewhere — often from outside the party structure — to seek election in a given constituency. All too often, as is happening now, such selections take place with elections less than a year away.

The overriding consideration in such cases is the perception by those in party leadership that the chosen individual has the capacity, by virtue of national recognition or perhaps access to monetary and material resources, to win the seat.

This longstanding practice, we suggest, does nothing to enable the ideal of a democracy which promotes participation by the people and representation of the people. Rather, it seems to us, the practice hinders participatory democracy.

As Mr Morris Holness, father of the new prime minister, reminds us, our democracy should not be about “a few people up the top calling themselves the government; it is government by the people, of the people…”

As the nation moves slowly but irrevocably towards reform of the political process, this business of candidate selection is something we believe should also be high on the agenda.

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We must do better in selecting party candidates