Dear Editor,

We live in a country where about 70 per cent of university graduates are forced to migrate, 16.3 per cent of the people are unemployed — with 40 per cent youth unemployment — and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 140 per cent.

We are licensing handcarts to earn extra revenue, while only about 3,000 of the country’s 65,000 registered firms pay taxes.

We have a $1.8-trillion debt, seven murders per day, the commissioner of police tells Parliament that they solve 500 murders annually.

We have the third worst per capita income in the Caribbean of USD$5,700. We have plagiarism in the JLP and plagiarism in our high schools.

Now, with all these problems, are you surprised that young people are turning to party buses, sexual enhancers, people are eating crocodile meat and mongoose to improve their sexual prowess, and a minister is attempting to dagger the nearest female? It is called stress relief.

Meanwhile, the JLP is attempting to replace a lay-lay leader with a ray-ray leader. Mr Holness is like Gorbachev or Marcus Garvey, he is a man ahead of his time. Jamaicans are not ready for Holness’s style of leadership; intellectualism, clean cut, no scandals, no Finsac, no libel or slander suits. He tries not to lie. He is too squeaky clean, he is like a boxer who has never been knocked down, But he is a leader that has tasted defeat, mainly because he told the truth.

He cannot release the report on why the JLP loss the 2011 elections if it points to him. Shaw, on the other hand, can match Simpson Miller’s ray-ray type of politics, promises not kept, fool-up people, drop hot words, handouts, and tracing.

Sad as it may seem, that is what is required of nowadays politicians; that is the ‘winability’ factor.

Mark Clarke

mark_clarke9@yahoo.com