SCARCELY a week after the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) defeated a no-confidence motion brought by the parliamentary Opposition against Prime Minister Bruce Golding by a narrow 30 to 28 votes, a group of some 100 Jamaicans chafing for action have called for an interim government.

The recommendation was one of several coming out of a Solution Action Forum dubbed “Take Back Jamaica” held at the University of Technology (UTech) in St Andrew yesterday, the brainchild of attorney-at-law Carlene McFarlane.

Dean of the Faculty of the Built Environment at UTech, and “Take Back Jamaica” member Dr Carol Archer said the movement sprang out of a “feeling of frustration, impotence and outrage” at last month’s events in Tivoli which virtually shut down the capital city for several days and before that the spiralling crime rate.

She said the “unexpected holiday” caused by the “Dudus phenomenon” had given time for serious introspection and was the “catalyst for action”.

“We recognised we simply could not continue this way. We realised that as Jamaicans we all wanted the same thing. A better Jamaica, a new social order,” she said.

Participants spoke, and spoke loudly with almost one voice. “Corrupt governance has to go” they said, declaring further that members of parliament must live in their constituencies, must use the healthcare system in Jamaica, must use the public transport system and the education system for their children from the primary to the university level.

Other suggestions from the floor were that no private persons in Jamaica should provide funding for political parties until the politicians “cleaned up their act”. In addition, they were unanimous in their call for the elimination of garrisons, constitutional reform and for political parties to open their books.

“We have to, as civil society, sit down and write the job description of politicians,” Paul Jennings insisted.

The group, which hopes to engage Jamaicans across the island, will next draft a manifesto to reflect its views, the proposed launch date for which is August 17 coinciding with the anniversary of the birth of National Hero Marcus Garvey. A suggestion that the function be held in Tivoli was met with sounds of enthusiastic approval.

The group was, however, clear that what was now needed was an immediate alternative government formed by volunteers as they “could not work with what is now in place”. Furthermore, they were firm that they did not want a “coalition JLP, PNP government as they can’t and won’t lead the country forward”.

“We need to create a manifesto of our own, for years the politicians have told us what they think we need, we now need to tell them what we need,” said Bradley Finzi Smith. “We [are] also calling for a separation of powers; you can’t be both member of parliament and minister of government and do both properly.”

The Jamaican Government, and Prime Minister Golding in particular, have been taking a severe battering for the handling of the extradition matter involving former West Kingston don Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, and the engagement of US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to lobby the United States to drop its request for Coke.