When politicians are caught in scandals or compromising situations, they may resign and offer some semblance of accountability — both individually and on the part of their political party.

However, some analysts believe that even when politicians walk away from the political arena, the scandals would have already stained the image of local politics and added to the widely believed notion that all politicians are corrupt.

Political commentator Dr Paul Ashley told the Jamaica Observer that a resignation is necessary but not sufficient.

“There must be more than resignation. If there is prima facie evidence that an individual stole money or misappropriated money, mere resignation means little or nothing. Many individuals, if they could merely resign and get to keep say US$10 million, they would gladly do so,” Ashley said.

“The perception that all politicians are corrupt is one that is borne out by the evidence of misappropriation, of unexplained wealth accretion.”

Ashley told the Sunday Observer that when found in breach of the law, politicians should be incarcerated to send a message of fairness.

“People should be going to jail. There must be some attempt to get back ill-gotten gains. These so-called misappropriations must be made criminal offences. I’m not into the resign and give up this or that. It’s criminal,” he lamented.

“And there must be a sanction that you never return to politics. You can’t thief then go away, and then come back to thief again. No ‘I shall return.’ There should be no return. It’s a one-way ticket out. That’s the end of your political career.”

Political commentator Kenyatta Powell told the Sunday Observer that when politicians resign, unfortunately, the damage has already been done.

“There’s a certain level of corruption that is endemic to our systems and to our politics and I think the average Jamaican is quite aware of that. And I think that a lot of Jamaicans have already lost confidence in the system, and they’ve lost confidence in the political leaders,” he said.

Powell noted that one indication of such is the disengagement from elections. “If you look at the last four general elections in a row, voter turnout has declined significantly.”

Voter turnout went from 61.46 per cent in 2007 to 37.85 per cent in 2020. Earlier this month, Phillip Paulwell, six-term Member of Parliament for Kingston Eastern and Port Royal, lamented the decline in voter turnout, and suggested that there is a “trust deficit” among the electorate and that the high level of voter apathy is “deeply disturbing”.

Further, Powell said if attention is paid to certain polls that ask about peoples’ confidence in politicians, there is indeed a lacking.

“I think we reached a critical point some time ago where I think the vast majority of Jamaicans have decided that our political leaders are simply not trustworthy. And so, there’s a way in which it doesn’t matter at this point whether or not a political leader who is caught up in an unfavorable situation resigns or doesn’t resign.”

He added that he doesn’t think that will have any effect on how citizens view politicians today.

“It’s the same old, same old. The average Jamaican has decided how he or she will navigate the system. People are just trying to survive and go about their business,” he told the Sunday Observer.

In the same breath, Powell reasoned that the public’s view of politics could be changed with consistent equal application of justice and consistent equal application of rules.

“Over a certain period of time, if you have that and people could be sure that when a politician or somebody powerful steps out of line, the system is not just equipped, but has the willingness to actually punish that person or apply the rules of justice to that person, as it would to any ordinary person.”

Another analyst, Kevin O’Brien Chang, argued, however, that there is a level of acceptance of corruption from citizens.

“Jamaicans, they themselves have a little built-in corruption in their minds. A certain level of corruption is okay. They accept that. If you go pass that, you resign and all that, but do we want to jail you? There has never been any real clamor for jailing any politician in Jamaica. We have never heard any real resentment. You look at other countries and see mass demonstrations… it has never reached that level in Jamaica,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“Since 1990, not a single Jamaican politician has gone to jail. If you look worldwide and see how many presidents and prime ministers have been charged and convicted, there’s a long list. These are presidents and prime ministers, the highest in the land. We have not even had a single elected politician gone to jail for 32 years. In my view, it says either we have the most honest politicians in the world, or the parties conspire.”

Former JLP Minister of Labour, JAG Smith, was the last politician to be sent to prison, following his arrest and charge in 1990 for defrauding the farm work programme.

By conspire, O’Brien Chang explained that, “When something happens, the kicking and the screaming from the other side (Opposition) only goes to a certain level and then they back off. Up to this day, I haven’t seen any explanation why Kern Spencer’s case was thrown out. The Ruel Reid trial is coming up. Will we see a push to actually go to the maximum level, and if people have to go to jail, they go to jail? We saw Trafigura dragged out for 15 years.”

In October 2006, then Opposition Leader Bruce Golding brought the Trafigura affair to public attention when he revealed that the firm, which traded oil for Jamaica on the international market, had donated $31 million to CCOC Association. At the time, then People’s National Party (PNP) General Secretary Colin Campbell was also the minister of information and development. The money was transferred to the account just prior to the PNP’s annual conference that year.

Conflictingly, Trafigura Beheer said the money was part of a commercial agreement, while the PNP maintained that it was a donation to the party.

Paulwell took the stand under oath in the Trafigura affair on Monday, March 7, 2022. Former prime minister and PNP President Portia Simpson Miller and Robert Pickersgill, among others, Campbell were listed to testify in open court about the donation.

Meanwhile, pointing to other cases, political analyst Nadeen Spence said there’s always the need to understand the context and to understand what has happened.

“Sometimes, we like to say that people should be brought before the court or people should be sent to prison, when in fact, an offence that meets that criteria hasn’t been committed. And so, as a democracy, as we ask for more accountability, we also need to understand what the offences are and which ones would be a breach, as opposed to breaking the law. Sometimes not all acts of corruption are offensive against the law. Corruption by itself isn’t an offence,” she told the Sunday Observer.

Spence gave the example of instances of conflicts of interest and pointed to the Public Bodies Management and Accountability (PBMA) Act, which sets the corporate governance framework for public bodies.

“A conflict of interest isn’t an offence against the law. If, for example, somebody is sitting on a board and the possibility arises that something could be perceived as a conflict of interest, there’s a way that the framework says you should deal with it. It doesn’t mean that conflict of interest won’t arise. It says ‘if one arises, here’s how you deal with it.’ We need a more nuanced perspective of what some of these so-called corrupt acts are,” she reasoned.

Without that, she warned, “Sometimes the punishment that we ask for will not fit the so-called crime. And we then lose faith in the system when the system might be working exactly how it is supposed to work. It might also be that we’re cynical and that we don’t trust. And perhaps politicians are 98 per cent to be blamed for the overwhelming lack of trust we see in the system, but I don’t think as citizens we should allow them to taint our perception of our democracy. We should rise above that.

“But let’s give credit where credit is due”, O’Brien Chang added.

“With Andrew Holness, we have seen Wheatley resign, we have seen Ruel Reid resign; George Wright resigned, Floyd Green had to resign, Montague had to resign. Back in 2011, Mike Henry had to resign too. So, it can be argued that Andrew Holness is bringing a new level of accountability. You’re not jailing anybody but he’s making people resign and the moral suasion of that is pretty strong. You’re sending a message to the ministers that if you go too far, I will boot you out.”

O’Brien Chang also suggested that what Jamaican politicians are paid may be a factor as to why some politicians go rogue.

“If we paid our politicians more, will they thief less? A lot of the politicians don’t even own a house. Our politicians are not living in palaces. They had a big thing about Andrew Holness’ house… there are lots of bigger houses in Jamaica. Our past prime ministers, did they live in luxury? No. They seemed to live decent, but not in luxury. If I want to reduce corruption in Jamaica, I would first go to the salary,” he said.