THE headline for today’s column is from the opening line in the sermon of Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) at the start of the movie Doubt.

“What do you do when you are not sure if you are horribly lost or you are going home?” It was more like thinking out loud than posing a question requiring an answer from the quiet congregation. “Doubt”, mused the Catholic priest, was “a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty.”

For most people, I suspect, certainty is a more secure place from which to organise one’s life and contemplate the world. It may be certainty about faith, values, a life partner or the justness of our cause. It may be certainty about a political preference, an investment or a career choice.

The question of what to do when you are not sure has been knocking around in my head for much of the past week as I — like many of you — reflected on the disclosures in the e-mails on the ‘Manatt mess’ published by the Sunday Gleaner of August 22 and the Government’s response to what smells like a smoking gun with Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s prints all over it.

We can look at the e-mails in one of two fundamental ways: One way is to apply reason and common sense, leading to the inescapable conclusion that the Government of Jamaica, acting in the interest of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), engaged Manatt, Phelps and Phillips to lobby the US Government to prevent the extradition of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke whose influence in the party cannot be overstated.

From that perspective, the transgressions of the administration undermine good governance practice in such serious and fundamental ways as to warrant the resignations of Mr Golding; his attorney general, Senator Dorothy Lightbourne; and the solicitor general, Douglas Leys.

That’s exactly what the People’s National Party was demanding Thursday as Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller also challenged the Government to produce all contractual arrangements between itself and the US law firm, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, which has been in the eye of the storm since March when opposition member Peter Phillips first brought the matter to light. The party will be going on the road to drum up public support for its position.

Another approach is to parse the words in the correspondence for their legal meaning, thereby creating doubt as to whether the transgressions of Mr Golding rose to the level of indictable offences in a court of law.

Said information minister Daryl Vaz: “There is nothing illegal or criminal in relation to the hiring of a lobby group, whether by the party or by the Government. What has happened is that the thing was ill-conceived, it was a mistake coupled with misrepresentation and it has been a complete, total mess-up from day one… I don’t think anybody would say otherwise.”

As outlined by Mr Vaz, the Government is asking “well-thinking Jamaicans to work with us on the positives in all other areas”. Among the positives, he said, are the reported seven per cent reduction in major crimes and the “many economic gains since the start of this year”.

The strategy is to have the prime minister meet with citizens and organisations that have doubts or questions. He will explain his handling of the situation, in private, and presumably seek their forgiveness, again.

My guess is that the strategy is based on a view that significant elements in the electorate harbour doubts that it is politically unwise to press for a resignation that could precipitate the fall of the Government and set back the economic stability taking shape since the Jamaica Debt Exchange (JDX) and the US$2.4 billion facility under the agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Part of that consideration, according to Mr Vaz and others, is that the PNP does not have the moral credibility to pressure the Government over Manatt because there are still unanswered questions over the alleged $31-million contribution to the PNP by the Dutch oil trading firm Trafigura.

While there are similarities between the two issues, there are also important differences. One of them is that Colin Campbell lost his job as minister and general secretary of the PNP.

Further, with the revelation by the contractor general last week that he has asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to examine whether Campbell should be prosecuted, the embattled politician has scratched plans to seek a comeback in a Clarendon constituency.

So with the Government and the Opposition promising to take to the streets to win hearts and minds to their diametrically opposed positions, we must insist on clear answers to remove doubts about the abilities and capacities of our political leaders to help the Jamaican people to realise their potential.

It will boil down to trust; and all evidence confirms that the Jamaican people have a very low level of trust, not only in our political leaders and institutions, but also in private organisations and in each other.

This is a time of grave doubts about the future; when you are in doubt you ask hard questions as you search for the truth.

Mrs Simpson Miller and the PNP are right to hold Mr Golding and his administration accountable for the Manatt mess; but they will also have to explain what they will do differently and what new systems they will put in place to catch and punish officials who abuse their office through corruption and other forms of wrongdoing.

Equally, Mr Golding cannot merely ask for forgiveness again. He cannot dismiss questions about the Government hiring Manatt to lobby on behalf of Mr Coke by instructing them to ask Manatt to produce evidence of a contract.

The fact is that Manatt has filed documents asserting that Harold Brady signed an agreement with them as a consultant authorised to do such business on behalf of the Jamaican Government. That filing has not been officially challenged nor has any action been taken against Mr Brady for ‘misrepresentation’.

What is required now is not a series of private meetings but a full disclosure by the prime minister to Parliament that removes the following doubts:

* Did the prime minster, wittingly or unwittingly, allow the use of human, financial and material resources of the state to frustrate a judicial process to secure a favourable political outcome on behalf of a man charged with serious gun crimes?

* Are we to understand that for more than six months after sanctioning the lobbying effort, the prime minister made no enquiries about the progress of the initiative until Peter Philips asked questions in Parliament?

* Are we to retain confidence in a solicitor general who sends out e-mails on matters to do with a treaty dispute with the most powerful country on earth without verifying the e-mail address of the recipient?

* Is it appropriate for a solicitor general to share confidential government legal strategy and thinking with an unauthorised member of the private bar?

* What did the attorney general know and when did she know it?

Mr Golding must give a full accounting to Parliament, including release of all communication, including meetings, phone records, e-mails, written and oral instructions, between the Government, the Jamaica Labour Party and US lobbyists Manatt, Phelps and Phillips.

On the basis of that accounting, the Jamaican people can — with certainty — make a determination about whether to ask Mr Golding to resign as prime minister now or wait for the next general election to make their final judgement.

Note to readers: The column will not appear for a few weeks as I take a break to, among other things, read and reflect some more on sustaining power of doubt and certainty.

kcr@cwjamaica.com