ANTHONY Hylton, the former minister who heads the People’s National Party’s Policy Commission, believes that “tainted money” in the political system poses “a clear and present danger” to Jamaica’s democracy and says that he is not surprised by the quarrel over the issue in the JLP during their recent election for a deputy leader.

Hylton, in an article written for the Sunday Observer, supporting state funding for political parties and limits on political contributions and election spending, also reveals that he has, in the past, contemplated his future in politics because of his concerns over special interests and their money.

He suggests, too, that imminent leadership changes in the ruling PNP — Prime Minister P J Patterson has said that he will not lead the party into the next general election — and the JLP where so-called reformists took many of the posts in recent internal elections, open an opportunity for an overhaul of the political process.

Hylton was returning to an issue which he first addressed in a speech to Parliament in 1996 when he was a junior minister in the foreign ministry.

In the article for the Sunday Observer (full text on Pages 10 & 11), the former West St Thomas MP says there has been an “exponential rise” in the cost of participation in elections since his first one in 1993, the increased pressure to raise money and his concern that new blood and new ideas entering the political process will be limited “only to the well-heeled or well connected”.

But his greater concern, he says, is for what he perceives “to be a clear and present danger to our democratic way of life posed by ‘tainted money’ about which there has been audible grumbling on the ground in the constituencies”.

Adds Hylton: “We have seen first-hand the corrosive consequences for the democratic process and the rule of law being played out in neighbouring countries in Latin America and elsewhere.

“I am therefore not surprised, for more reasons than one, by the recent charges by the Opposition Leader (Edward Seaga) of ‘tainted money’ deciding the outcome of at least one race for deputy leader of his party.

“This latest event has sparked renewed debate within the country on this very critical issue that threatens to undermine the democratic process and can no longer be ignored.”

Seaga had claimed that “tainted money” had helped to finance James Robertson’s campaign to defeat a Seaga loyalist, Olivia “Babsy” Grange for one of the JLP’s four deputy leader posts last month.

Seaga later withdrew the accusation, but only after he had come under pressure from some of the JLP’s traditional financiers who had backed Robertson and after Daryl Vaz, the finance director for the Robertson campaign, had asked the police to investigate the allegation.

Ironically, it was Robertson who beat Hylton for the West Thomas seat in the general election 13 months ago.

In his article, Hylton, who is Prime Minister Patterson’s point man on a project for the construction of a liquefied national gas (LNG) storage and re-gasification plant in eastern Jamaica, makes a case for political parties that are better organised, more professional and policy-driven, if they are to engage civil society groups and positively impact on the quality of governance.

In fact, Hylton stresses that changes now taking place in his own PNP and in the Jamaica Labour Party “cannot simply be about changes in personnel” but rather be reflective of an improved quality of dialogue and constructive debate in Jamaica.

Says he: “This provides an opportunity for all of us to transform the political culture away from the ‘curry goat’ politics to a more enlightened politics and in support of the sustained development of our country.

“But this process requires nurturing and support, in part, through funding by the state in order to modernise as well as to make more professional political parties and to reduce the undue influence of monied interests, as well as to exclude the corrupting influence of ‘tainted money’.”