The two local government election debates sponsored by the Jamaica Debating Commission are now over.

I watched both debates and found them to be without substance and as uninspiring as they were vacuous. The debaters in the second round seemed to have had more to say, but on a whole they were pathetic and did not give the discerning any reason to be hopeful about this system of governance in our political process.

There was nothing new to be learnt. Not that anyone who knows how this system operates expected to. What is clear is that Jamaicans have become more alienated from the process. This is buttressed by recent national polls which show that 40 per cent of Jamaicans have given the municipal corporations a failing grade. Another 40 per cent say they are barely performing.

A recent Bluedot poll done by Nationwide News Network revealed that a large percentage of the population in each parish does not know who their mayors are, not to mention their sitting councillors. And this is on both sides of the political divide. By the way, what is a small country with almost three million people doing with 15 mayors? There are two in St Catherine alone, when you count the mayor of Portmore.

If the politicians had their way, they would move the number to 21 and counting. What the debates did not answer, and perhaps could not answer, is why there is such a marked and growing alienation of Jamaicans from the local government process? If history is any guide, it seems quite clear that this time around less than 40 per cent of the voting population will vote in the elections on February 26. And this percentage, as with the general elections, will constitute the tribal, diehard elements in each party and those devoted to just “eating a food”.

If one should attempt to answer the question of growing isolation, it seems clear to me that the system is broken, perhaps irreversibly so. The system is impatient of serious reform, because it is a broken cistern that can carry no water. It is failing in every metric of local governance of which you could think. For example, it is an incontestable truth that every town in Jamaica is in a state of dilapidation — I initially thought to restrict this criticism to only major towns, but it would be too generous to leave out the others that are just as guilty.

Many do not have sidewalks and where these exist they are broken. I have written before of the ramshackle the town of Mandeville has become. Since then, the authorities have tried to deal with the traffic congestion in the town, but it is still not a place that you can drive and do business with any great comfort.

I stand to be advised, but I do not know if waste water is still running on the streets in the city of Montego Bay. Citizens have been forced to drink the bitter dregs of indignity when they visit almost any market in our major towns. They are dirty and rundown, with hardly any decent public sanitary facility to take the pressure off your bladder and elsewhere. If any is available, they are not generally clean and some are broken or lacking in the amenities that should be present in these public areas.

Another unsightly phenomenon is the many unpainted buildings that you see in town centres. The authorities should insist that, for good order and cleanliness, owners of these buildings carry out routine maintenance of their properties. Is it too much to ask that they at least put a coat of paint on these buildings, some of which seem not to have been painted since they were first constructed? Is cleanliness no longer next to godliness?

These are just a few of the things that parish councillors have failed to deliver. There are so many more but they cannot be contained in a single column. But the general lack of attention to the indignities that people have to face is too much a defining feature of local government. It is a pain to interface with them in doing business. The inordinate delays due to lethargy or just plain laziness cause some people to “drop something” under the table to get anything done. I sometimes think that this nonchalance is indulged to force just this outcome.

Understandably and regrettably, I did not hear one debater address the question of radical reform of the system. You heard a lot of defence of what one’s party has done or is doing and this to burnish an image that does not really exist. But there was absent any suggestion that both political parties have seriously sat down and come up with a plan to change the system for the better.

The governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) was heavily weighted on improving the status quo but no revolutionary change to it. The People’s National Party (PNP) churlishly pointed to what they have done in the past with very little evidence to buttress it.

I notice that the parish councils are no longer called parish councils but have been given the more elegant name of municipal corporations. But no amount of changing the label on a bottle will suffice if the same poison is being poured into it. Some may interpret a name change as reform, but we need far more radical change than that.

So on February 26 citizens will be asked to cast a vote in favour of either amphictyoni. The tribe best skilled at getting out its voters will win. There may be a smattering of independent votes. But I predict it will largely be along tribal lines. And the better organised and financed tribe, which appears to be the JLP, will win. The big question is: After winning, what will change?

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest, social commentator, and author of the books Finding Peace in the Midst of Life’s Storms; The Self-esteem Guide to a Better Life; and Beyond Petulance: Republican Politics and the Future of America. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or stead6655@aol.com.