Dear Editor,

It has been approximately seven years since Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared that within 100 days of taking office his Government would set fixed election dates and have specific term limits.

As with giving comfort to fools, Holness had also promised to give Members of Parliament job descriptions. Roughly 2,550 days later that assurance of fixed election dates and all the myriad promises have proven to be either false or found wanting. Now we know his promises should be taken with a grain of salt. Maybe it will ease the reality that prosperity is just nicely packaged bitter medicine.

Jamaica is being run like a real sidewalk stall! Is this a tarpaulin Government?

After staging a general election at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, all of a sudden, another postponement of the local government elections on spurious claims. This seems unconstitutional.

Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke claims the economy is healthy, while Local Government Minister Desmond Mckenzie claims it’s best not to keep local government elections at this time as the economy is tentatively recovering — huh? Make it make sense? What happened to the “miraculous” recovery? How are we back at “delicate”?

The Government’s continued abuse of local governance in Jamaica is a travesty of justice and a violation of our human rights. It is a dangerous precedent to our frail pretence of a democracy.

I am now challenging the Government to end the cycle of shameless deception and false justification being used to postpone local government elections for the umpteenth time.

As a concerned citizen I demand that our prime minister follows through on his forgotten promise and fix election dates during this legislative calendar. After so much time has been spent on legislation to curb crime, I think the nation can now turn its attention to electoral and governance reform.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

yannickpessoa@yahoo.com