I have never been a believer in the two-party system of government. This does not mean that I am a communist or a fascist.

I don’t believe communism is a workable solution because I don’t believe that people can be motivated by the betterment of the group as a whole in the absence of personal ambition.

Communism stifles innovation and entrepreneurship. I like the equality angle, though. Fascism created Italy’s Mussolini and Spain’s Franco, so that failure speaks for itself.

The recent conflict involving the St Catherine South Eastern seat is a study in the failure of the two-party system. Three good men stand ready to serve their country – Alrick Campbell, Dr Alfred Dawes, and the sitting Member of Parliament Robert “Big Rob” Miller.

All are deeply motivated and capable. However, in a country with too few good men we will eliminate two who will likely not contribute to their country in the short run.

That makes no sense. Let us look wider.

By 2025 we will be in the middle of a general election. In a country the size of a small state in the United States of America we are able to present two candidates of the calibre of Mark Golding and Andrew Holness.

The USA, 100 times our size, presented Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton just a few years ago in 2016.

I still can’t fathom how, after John McCain and Barack Obama, the best you can come up with are two candidates with a public image like Clinton and Trump. Yet, despite the elevated and obvious superiority of both our leaders, with records of stellar performances in their chosen vocations and their obvious passion for their country, both men will be maligned by a political system that allows for one victor and one vanquished.

They will be called corrupt, stupid, evil, selfish, and myopic. These are descriptions that do not remotely describe the two.

Race will come into play. The sanctity of family, private affairs, and privacy on a whole will be ignored.

Common decency, civilised behaviour, and our culture as a people who respect each other will be set aside. We will ignore all of the achievements of both parties.

The fact that we no longer have to buy US dollars in alleyways, that to own a new car we no longer have to crawl into a dealership and beg, that no more is a home phone a mark of privilege, that electrical outages are a rarity, that we have highways and a registered gun regulation system that leads the world, will be ignored.

Only the negative will be drummed into our public’s ear.

All above improvements were accomplished by both parties. This is why democracy is not a system that best serves the people but is, however, the best of all systems we have invented. Or is it?

How about a coalition government that involves layers of management and shared power?

Has this ever really been tried? Is there no way that both parties and the 126 representatives that they put forward can serve? Is this current system working? Is it in many ways facilitating crime and gang preservation?

Every security company operator sits in apprehension about what the next minister, irrespective of party, will change in the Firearm Licensing Authority, Private Security Regulation Authority, and the Ministry of Labour.

We will sit in this metaphorical fireplace because the Government that comes never learns from the mistakes of its predecessor.

We, as the servants of the liege (lord) to be, will sit humbly awaiting what new policy on an industry he or she has, or at best read about, to which we will be subjected.

Why can’t the sitting minister stay in the ministry in a role or job that allows for him to advise and support the new minister for the betterment of us all? Because it’s all about a winner and a loser. It’s not about us.

But it could be, if winning were not all. It could, if on election night ministers weren’t sent scurrying to their offices to ‘pack dem bungle and lef di premises’ like some common prisoner emptying their cell due to an unscheduled release.

Then there is the intermingling with community leadership and criminal gangs.

Politicians wouldn’t be forced to associate and collaborate with these elements because losing wouldn’t be a lose-all.

This association is possibly at its lowest in 50 years — and it’s still too much. Hooliganism and criminality are evident in the aforementioned St Catherine seat and are an embarrassment not just to the political party, but to us as a people.

No one could imagine that after Eventide, the Orange Street fire, Roy McGann, Top Hill, and the Tivoli incursion we would still believe that there is a place for the criminals and criminal groups in our politics.

Democracy in its truest form can only function when resources are in abundance.

Freedom only exists when there are no gangs to replace the Government as the “oppressor”.

The two-party State can only work when the availability of good men outnumbers the requirement. None of the three above-mentioned scenarios exist in Jamaica.

We need more help than is available. We can’t, therefore, chuck half of the willing on the garbage heap.

We are a success in many ways, but in many ways we have failed. The core reason is not the willing we have chosen, but rather the system of casting the capable aside.

Feedback: drjasonamckay@gmail.com