We have elected a new government

Published in the Jamaica Gleaner : Thursday | September 6, 2007

Martin Henry

My fellow Jamaicans (to use a favourite Portia phrase), we have elected a new Government made up of a new executive, a new Opposition, and a new legislature. We have decided to separate by the thinnest of margins the majority party in the legislature, from which the executive Cabinet will be drawn, from the minority party which will constitute the Opposition. We have our reasons.

But let us do a little more than 'vote fi dem and tun run cuss them', especially those who will form the executive arm of our constitutional Government.

The severe problems of Jamaica land we love remain the morning after. Indeed, as a stark reminder of the deadly number one problem of crime and violence and its close links to old politics, shooting broke out in some places as soon as the final results of the night were deliveredby the Electoral Office of Jamaica.

We can expect the new executive Government to chalk up its own scandals to be unearthed by the new Opposition. Corruption, deeply entrenched in the Jamaican way of life in the land of the bly, will continue we must continue to hope for some reduction in the political sphere. Inefficiencies and failures and outright abandonment of promises will occur.

A neutral civil service

Executive governments have been impatient with the inertia, lethargy and poor performance of their operational arm - the civil service - and none more so than Michael Manley's of the 1970s. But a neutral civil service is one of the pillars of democracy.

A government of sinful, selfish humans for other sinful, selfish humans will always have its problems and challenges of honesty and integrity. Constitutions were invented to define the functions of government and restrain governments from excesses and unjust actions, not to give citizens rights which they already have as 'inalienable' gifts from their creator as the American Declaration of Independence puts it.

And citizens have a vital role to play in democratic governance well beyond voting every five years - or cussing those they voted for. We must continue to engage the processes of governance between elections. Taking my own advice, over the 18 years of the last Government, which was very far from being any kind of disaster as campaign rhetoric would have us believe, but the close vote says we didn't, I have engaged the government on a number of issues.

Right at the start, I joined many other Jamaicans to work on the Five Year Development Plan for 1990-1995. That included work on S&T Policy and Plan. Later work contributed to the establishment of the NCST. I have joined fellow citizens in engaging virtually every education reform plan over the period: PEIP I & II, PESP, ROSE, LIP, Education Transformation Task Force, etc. I have worked closely with Prime Minister Patterson on the Citizen's Charter. I have engaged crime management and local government reform.

Public advocacy

Joint Select Committees of Parliament routinely issue green papers for public discussion of issues before legislation. God bless the few citizens who engage these green papers. In the past administration, I have contributed to the Committee of Advisers on Government Structure, the Access to Information Act, Flexible Work Arrangements, Intellectual Property Rights including two-term service on the Copyright Tribunal, etc.

The extraordinary privilege of writing this column for near 20 years has been used as a platform for public advocacy. The beneficiaries of publicly supported higher education and their teachers need to engage public affairs far more vigorously and I have been running a personal crusade of encouragement in the academic world.

Comrade Golding, in his tension-diffusing, conciliatory election night speech (hard to call it a victory speech) called for collaboration and cooperation. I strongly share Golding's reading that the vote is a call for cross-party collaboration on the critical issues facing our nation. There is no vanquished; there is no victor. The pragmatism of politics can use this as a platform for a level of political negotiation that we have not ever seen as a nation, but which is seriously necessary. Indeed, those who refuse to heed the call of the vote can only further damage their interests. But the cooperation and collaboration must involve not just parties, but citizens willing to give more than a vote to governance.

Martin Henry is a communication specialist.