Dear Editor,

I am of the view that we urgently need a viable third political party in Jamaica.

In the present political landscape one party is obsessed with highlighting episodes of corruption in the other, while omitting to address instances of its own misdeeds while in office.

While I can hear people bemoaning that which we have presently, all other parties that appear end up dead and all but buried.

The impression has long been created that third parties will never gain prominence in this country and that may be true if the expectation is for that third party to attempt to gain State power. This writer is under no such illusion and believes that the right message would gain some traction by adopting a more realistic approach and argument.

Imagine, if you will, a Jamaican Parliament consisting of the two major parties and a third garnering between five and 10 seats. This would surely be a game-changer in Jamaican politics.

No longer would the suffering public be forced to watch one party tear the other down, highlighting all the negatives without being able to point to their difference and effectiveness when it captained the ship.

In such a scenario, the third party would balance the argument by not only highlighting the anomalies, but also putting forward arguments as to the adjustments that could be made to suggested policies.

If we should care to cast our minds back to the not too distant past, a third political party, the National Democratic Movement (NDM), had enunciated policies which found resonance in many quarters, but failed to gain traction in the business community due, I suspect, to the belief that funding invested in a third party would be a waste of time.

Well, I believe the time has come for sensible, non-partisan Jamaicans to wake up from their slumber and emulate those smaller Caribbean islands with three, four, and five political parties.

In Jamaica’s case, the third party would commence by stressing to the public that the aim is not to attempt winning State power, but to canvas the five or so constituencies most likely not tribalised to the extent that these constituencies could combine to become the most powerful force in the House holding the balance between which policies are beneficial for Jamaica’s long-term good and which ones should be rejected.

A campaign based on this concept should, in my opinion, stir interest in even the most doubtful yet hopeful elector.

I will be greatly interested to hear other people’s points of view on this topic.

William McKenzie

wjonmac01@gmail.com