PRIME Minister Golding is famous (or infamous) for being asked about homosexuals serving in senior positions of the Government of Jamaica with him as prime minister and responding, “Not in my Cabinet!”. The next Prime Minister of Jamaica needs to be known around the world for giving that answer to other questions.

Some of those questions could be as follows:

“Will you allow people with connections to drug and extortion gangs to serve in senior government positions?”

“Will you allow politicians who are corrupt to serve in senior government positions?”

“Will you allow politicians who break or flout the Constitution of Jamaica to serve in senior government positions?”

“Will you allow politicians who accept money from questionable sources to serve in senior government positions?”

“Will you allow politicians who refuse to dismantle garrisons to serve in senior government positions?”

For far too long Jamaicans have tolerated bad governance to the point that some no longer seem to know what good governance is supposed to look like. We have accepted certain things by saying “a suh it go, man” instead of standing up for the fact that it should NOT work that way.

Citizens complain about corruption and connections to criminals but turn around and bribe policemen to not give them a traffic ticket or pay to get a driver’s licence instead of taking the test, not realising that they are contributing to the downward spiral of the society in their own little way.

When corruption is a way of life, a country cannot excel. It is like a rock around your neck and it must be cast off. Jamaica’s next prime minister must articulate a clear vision for a Jamaica with less corruption, fewer people of questionable character in politics, and transparency in the way political parties are funded.

Youth alone is not good enough. Leadership skills alone are not good enough. It will take a dogged determination to rid politics of the stench that has been emanating from it from long before I was born.

This is a golden opportunity for a truly transformative leader, the kind that Bruce Golding of the NDM had promised to be but who Bruce Golding of the JLP has not been.

It seems that minister of education Andrew Holness will be that person, and though my only interaction with him was observing his presentation and mannerisms at the Jamaican Diaspora Future Leaders Conference in 2009 at UWI, I have gained information about him from a young man I mentor, Douglas Urquhart, who lives in Drewsland, an economically challenged area that is located in Mr Holness’s constituency.

‘Dougi’, as he is called, told me that just before the 2002 general election, Holness came to him and asked what he wanted to do with his life. He said Holness asked him if he wanted to work, go back to school or go into business for himself. ‘Dougi’ had started a small chicken farm and told Holness he wanted to expand that business.

‘Dougi’ told me that Holness connected him to someone who provided 200 chickens and some feed two weeks after that first meeting. He received follow-up assistance with additional feed. In terms of how important this kind of intervention was, ‘Dougi’ said his business would have remained much smaller, but the additional profit allowed him to extend the coop. The business also kept him away from having to find other means to provide for himself and his family, some of which would have been illegal.

I am no campaign public relations consultant for Holness (full disclosure: I am a judge for the BlackBerry App Competition being run by the Ministry of Education). My reason for relating Dougi’s story is to use it to send a message to Minister Holness in the event that he does become the leader of the JLP.

Minister Holness, there are a number of people in your constituency who obviously believe that you have directly contributed to bettering their lives. If you do become JLP leader and the prime minister, please do not disappoint them by including people who put personal interests ahead of the country in your Cabinet.

The opportunity to do this for the entire country is not one to be squandered, and you have no honeymoon period. No leader has ever truly worked towards ending garrison politics and denouncing what has become the norm in Jamaica. Previous generations of politicians have bequeathed to future generations a badly infected system. Your generation, Generation X, finally may have a chance to put up or shut up, as the saying goes.

Jamaica truly needs ‘action, not a bag a mout’, so if ‘Dougi’ has such confidence in you because of what you did to assist him, then I wait to see if those actions can be replicated on a larger scale and were not simply a one-off. Clean up Jamaican politics, introduce accountability and set a good example for others to follow.

You must be strong enough to say, “Not in my Cabinet!”

David Mullings is the first Future Leaders Representative for the USA on the Jamaican Diaspora Advisory Board. He can be found at facebook.com/InteractiveDialogue and Twitter.com/davidmullings