Prime minister and Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader Andrew Michael Holness, popularly called Anju, especially by adoring admirers, has declared that his current focus is not so much on playing to the gallery or being detained by detractors. His main preoccupation is that of ensuring his legacy.

However, as much as it can be said that his and his Government’s performance to date has been commendable in many respects, the big elephant in the room has been crime, particularly in the area of murders.

In 1972, the year the prime minister was born, the number of Jamaicans murdered was 170. Up to October 1, 2022, 1,171 homicides were recorded and counting. It is against this backdrop that Holness legacy will have to be assessed, especially when concerned citizens recall that in his recent dispensation as Opposition leader, he had allegedly declared on an election platform in Hopewell, Hanover, that if the JLP were re-elected to govern, individuals would be able to sleep with their doors and windows open, or words to that effect. Unfortunately, that ill-advised utterance, though well intentioned, has continued to haunt him and cast a negative shadow over his otherwise illustrious career in politics so far. Indeed, one may well say that this has been a classic case of “cock mouth kill cock”.

At the 79th JLP annnual conference on Sunday, November 20, 2022, Holness bragged about the many achievements as well as the plans of his two-term Administration. Swerving seemingly to the left, he posited that it was his Government’s intention to assist working-class people to move up to middle class status by way of a select number of programmes and policies designed to enable them to “step up inna life”. It was heartening to hear him say that, with respect to housing and provision of land for the landless, there would be a deliberate focus on planned development rather than allowing the proliferation of informal settlements. This is most welcome news because the word “planning” has not found a favourable space in successive governments’ attempts to deal with the age-old problem of land-capturing and squatting.

To the JLP’s credit, the unemployment rate has been at a record low of 6.60 per cent and the prime minister boasted on the platform that there were thousands of jobs for the taking. Unfortunately, what he did not deliberate on is the fact that, despite there being so many jobs available, there have been few takers. In fact, the tourism industry, which has been one of the biggest employers of labour, has been reeling under the adverse effects of many vacancies not being filled. Is this a curious case of “rain a fall but the dutty tough”?

It behoves the Government to fully examine this phenomenon in the workplace because it is a most ominous sign. For starters, is it that the country has, for the most part, an overwhelming number of people, especially among the younger population, who are unemployable by virtue of the fact that they are unskilled and unqualified? This is a most frightening scenario which must be addressed forthwith.

On the other hand, could it be a case that many young people are pursuing alternative means of survival, which would bring into sharp focus the preference of going into criminal activities, such as scamming, drug trafficking/pushing, illegal vending, and various forms of “hustlings”, inclusive of operating “robot” taxis and other forms of transport as well as just sitting on the corners digging out their handle middle, not to mention surviving from remittances, and so on. There is also the vexing issue of low wages and poor working conditions. Indeed, it is safe to say that a “culture of informality” is overtaking the marketplace, which, in more ways than one, has helped to generate much indiscipline and lawlessness in the wider society. It is also in this conundrum that the chaos and mayhem he referred to has taken root and is being nurtured. If, as Holness has proudly maintained, the JLP is a party of law and order, then these issues must be addressed frontally, because, in essence, they are incubators for much criminal behaviour and practice.

All of the aforementioned must be juxtaposed against the background of what the JLP leader says is another feather in the party’s cap, which is that, in terms of demographics, the empirical evidence would suggest that more women and young people have entered the “green fold” and may well have been shunning the “orange brigade”. In this vein, the prime minister’s bragging about the JLP now being a “big tent” in which the competition of ideas is encouraged is a refreshing departure from the days when the “one don” syndrome was pervasive.

In all of this, Holness was riding high until he turned to the burning issue of crime, extolling the use of states of public emergency as some kind of panacea. To put it bluntly, Prime Minister, while a state of public emergency may provide a temporary respite, in the long run it is nothing more than a Band-Aid fraught with many dangers relating to human rights abuses, constitutional breaches as well as the underlying problem of the use of the Jamaica Defence Force in tandem with the Jamaica Constabulary Force that apart from engendering the emergence of a police State may ultimately create some serious confrontations and clashes between these two entities.

In the final analysis, the prime minister has enough political capital to dare to be a Daniel, but he must not squander it on the altar of egotism and bombast. He has to fully come to the realisation that consultation and consensus have to be the only pragmatic and patriotic way to deal decisively with the crime monster. And this means that he must swallow his pride and explore ways and means to bring all contending parties to the table, even if it means making some compromises. Let us not fool ourselves, it is going to take all of us, regardless of our partisan affectations, to conquer this insidious cancer that is fast metastasising and may eventually take over the entire nation.

Yes, Anju, you have been scoring many winning punches in the political ring, but crime has delivered a black eye so far to your otherwise beaming face, and you must be careful it does not eventually take you down for the count.

Lloyd B Smith has been involved in media for the past 46 years. He has also served as a Member of Parliament and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. He hails from western Jamaica where he is popularly known as the Governor. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or lbsmith4@gmail.com.