By By Calvin Bowen, Gleaner Writer
Bowen
THE COUNTRY is in election mode. The political parties have begun girding their loins for the coming battle.
For a battle indeed is the campaign for the coveted prize of victory at the polls and the prestige of being the government of Jamaica. Traditionally, a general election is fought fiercely and with intensity for the reward of national leadership and the glory of governance.
Given the norm of civil behaviour, it should however not be anything like a battle in the military sense of armed combatants waging war. Rather, it should be a battle in name only a peaceful, non-violent contest for the favour of the electorate.
Regrettably, the history of past parliamentary elections does not show this pattern of conduct. On the contrary, in recent years election time has, more than once, been a period of bloody strife, with opposing political camps, through their followers and supporters, resorting to bloodshed in an overheated campaign of confrontation.
Already there are ominous signs that this general election may follow this deadly path. Many of the killings that took place in the island last year were seen to have a political connection with rival gangs, said to be allied to one or other of the political parties, engaging in mortal combat. And there appears to be little hope that the coming contest will not see a continuation of this savagery.
But need this happen? This country is supposed to be a democracy; and while healthy political rivalry is to be expected indeed, encouraged the holding of an election ought to be a peaceful procedure, with the government of the country being chosen by the ballot, not by the bullet.
Responsibility for the holding of a peaceful election rests entirely on the political parties and their leadership ( as, happily, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have more or less admitted in their recent joint statement).
If the example of a calm and dispassionate approach to the contest can be set by those who seek to earn the right, and the privilege, to govern the country, then the rank-and-file members of the voting population will undoubtedly follow the lead; and will refrain from the acrimony and bitter antagonism that has been such a dangerous feature of some past elections.
Certainly, elections should be hard-fought and keenly contested. But this ought to be done without the strident and even virulent rhetoric from political platforms that can have the dire effect of inflaming passion among the electorate, adding fuel to the fire of election heat and leading, too often, to loss of life.
So it is up to the politicians to ensure that the general election is peaceful a model of civilised exercise of the franchise.
There should be no recurrence of the spectacle of armed forces fighting for the spoils of victory at the polls. Jamaica has enough problems social and economic without having to endure the trauma of another bloody election.
As the battle lines are drawn, as the political parties prepare for the ritual war of words, may cool heads, soft hearts and peace prevail. Let us Jamaicans demonstrate to the world that we are indeed a democratic nation, in which observance of the principle of one man one vote, under the rule of law, is our proud national characteristic.
Calvin Bowen is a retired Assistant Editor of the Gleaner.
