Dear Editor,

Jamaica is in big trouble.

This country will be celebrating 55 years of Independence and still our politicians are being allowed to practise nepotism.

The constituency formerly held by Portia Simpson Miller now seeks a new standard-bearer for the People’s National Party (PNP). So far the contestants include Comrades Karl Blake, Dr Angela Brown Burke, Rev Dr Joan Porteous, and Audrey Smith Facey.

Simpson Miller has already made it absolutely clear who she wants to succeed her. The problem with this endorsement of Brown Burke is that she recommended someone for a seat who had not shown any desire to run for it; she did not even apply.

The last time I checked, Jamaica is a democratic country and politics is not to be handled like the distribution of inheritance. The PNP was founded by Norman Manley in 1938, not as a family business, but as a party to serve the country of Jamaica. Why are these politicians being allowed to practise favouritism and nepotism with constituencies that don’t belong to them?

Constituencies are a body of voters in a specified area who elect a representative to a legislative body; it is not a family’s legacy. By condoning this behaviour we are disenfranchising the poorer class of people in having a say in who represents them? We must not trample on the rights of the marginalised.

Where is the transparency and integrity in theses political processes?

Please allow democracy to prevail. You can’t push out someone and put in your friends. We must promote decency and help prevent the moral decay; it can’t be curry goat politics as usual.

How do we as a nation expect positive change when we continue to encourage garrison politics? I call upon the leadership of the PNP to address this matter in a timely manner and for the powers that be to do the right thing.

Rev Tanasha Buchanan

tanashabuchanan@yahoo.com