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Patterson
THE EDITOR, SIR:
THIS IS an open letter to our Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson:
Dear Prime Minister:
I have been thinking about this letter and may have left it for too long, but I do hope you will read it and think about it.
I know that you love this country and its people and only want the best for us all and, because you are in the hot seat and have the power, I would like to suggest that you rethink the matter of motorcades and holding political meetings on the streets.
These two areas of campaigning are worrying factors to us all as so many things can happen and do a great deal of harm to the country.
Neither you nor the other political parties can ever be sure what the people who come on at the back of all meetings are capable of doing.
We know that sometimes they break into premises and loot and literally create mayhem.
Would it not be wiser for all political meetings to be held indoors where the crowds could be monitored and thus ensure that nothing untowards occurs?
I know that you have good negotiating skills and feel sure that you can liaise with the other political parties and set in motion a change in the pattern of electioneering and if this can be accomplished now what a peaceful electioneering campaign it could be.
In your recent meeting in Cross Roads, businesses had to be closed early, and it really bothered some people who had to find alternate routes.
This really should not happen, and now you are set to have another meeting in Half Way Tree at which I imagine there will be a great crowd expecting to hear the date of the election.
In today's Jamaica anything could happen and so I appeal to you to change the venue.
Could you not arrange to rent, say, the New Kingston Cinema, which I think can hold crowds or any other venue that can accommodate the crowd you expect?
We must all work together for the common good.
I will also appreciate if you would use your negotiating skills to get all political parties to agree to depoliticise key areas such as education, health, justice and that discussions should take place between all parties to come to a common understanding on these various areas and that would mean that the society at large would be under less stress.
I sincerely hope that you will give this letter some attention and possibly accept some of the ideas set out.
I am, etc.,
BARBARA COVER
Kingston 6
