Robert Buddan, Contributor
EDWARD SEAGA has no electoral mandate to bring down the government. He has no proper authority from the party to do so, questionable authority to be party leader, no constitutional right to resort to means that are outside the laws and spirit of the constitution for such a course of action, and no convention in any system of a responsible Parliamentary Opposition for such action.
Mr. Seaga's position is a violation of the mandate of the electorate that the People's National Party (PNP) has the right to form the government for the next five years. It is a rejection of the interpretation of the mandate to the two parties for a more balanced parliament and a more accommodating politics between opposition and government.
Mr. Seaga's attitude is a reversal of the positive gains made since the elections last year. Through summits between the Prime Minister and himself, Mr. Seaga promised to form a united position on the critical issues of crime and justice, fairer allocation of resources to MPs, more responsibility to the Opposition on the committees of Parliament and a more bipartisan approach to foreign relations.
Mr. Seaga's opinion that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) should form the Government is contrary to opinion polls conducted 100 days since the elections that showed great dissatisfaction with the JLP's performance as the opposition party and greater dissatisfaction with Mr. Seaga's performance compared to Mr. Patterson's. Mr. Seaga's estimation of the popular legitimacy of the two parties is premature since the JLP has not even proven that it can win the Local Government elections to come shortly.
Mr. Seaga's politics is outdated and harks back to the anarchical rhetoric of removing the government by 'overthrow or underthrow' adopted by the JLP in the 1970s. That position produced economic sabotage which former JLP spokesman on finance, Basil Buck, admitted had taken place under Seaga's opposition leadership. It led to violence, an atmosphere of destabilisation and a general crisis of authority. It cannot be good for the economy or for Jamaica's reputation abroad today. It is the old ill-tempered style of confrontationalism that the society has rejected by its repeated rejection of Mr. Seaga at the polls.
NATIONAL CONSEQUENCES
There are many unfortunate things about Mr. Seaga's about-turn.
The most unfortunate thing, of course, is that it ends the bipartisanship achieved since the 2002 elections. That period lasted for only four months. Yet, during this period, important gains were made. One would hope that the agreements made during those four months will remain.
The termination of this bipartisanship comes just at the time when a debate on the future economic policy was possible and out of that debate, the parties and the potential social partners might have been likely to come to an agreement on the economy. This would have added to the other agreements already reached on the polity. One hopes that Mr. Seaga has not terminated the bipartisanship at the point that he believes that the JLP has got what it wanted out of it but short of compromising opportunities for a self-serving oppositional style that would suit the party's ambitions for power. Mr. Seaga's cynical attitude towards power is well-known. We saw it in the JLP-Golding Memorandum of Understanding.
The second unfortunate thing is that Mr. Seaga's decision undermines a process that goes beyond bipartisanship and could extend to a broader social partnership. The ground was being laid for a new period of accommodation. Once the parties could agree on the ground rules for political stability, there were fertile grounds for new agreements between business and labour towards a social partnership. The history of adversarialism has been an unproductive one. Different sectors had been coming, however slowly, to accept that a more consensual form of political-economic management was a promising alternative that we have not yet tried.
Hopefully, the business and labour wings of the JLP will be able to see further into Jamaica's future than Mr. Seaga has been able to and appreciate their broader responsibility to national development. They might be able to convince Mr. Seaga that his position threatens to weaken their own and that he faces further isolation from them should he pursue his new (or old) course.
The third unfortunate thing about Mr. Seaga's divisive oppositional strategy is that it comes when the world is on the brink of a war. We are already feeling the impact of rising oil prices and the unstable situation in Venezuela combines to harm our oil supplies even more. There is broad consensus across the business and political communities that a war will hurt tourism and energy supplies, two of the most critical aspects of our economy. It is precisely at such a time that small and vulnerable economies like ours depend on responsible political leadership across the board to find ways of taking the country through rough seas rather than compounding the problem by making the seas stormier. There are some conditions that are beyond our control. But those that are within our ability to cushion the destabilisation of our economic and social lives should be seized. In some countries political forces would be trying to forge common solutions to external threats. Those countries will make it through the war better. Those that do not have the common will to do so will suffer for many years to come, regardless of which party forms the government.
Mr. Seaga should try to understand the greater evil if he is to appreciate the greater good.
The fourth thing that is worrying about Mr. Seaga's new turn is that it raises old questions about whether Mr. Seaga is the only voice that the JLP has. Could the larger body of JLP parliamentarians and members of its Central Executive be so short-sighted to agree with him that this course is the best for Jamaica? It is easier to believe that Mr. Seaga's about-turn is the ill-tempered act of one man. This is easier to believe, not only because Mr. Seaga's ill-temperedness has spoilt his better judgment time and time again but the perception that the JLP is a one-man party is well-established. In fact, one of the reasons why the JLP lost in 2002 was because the JLP was not seen to be a team.
Since the elections, however, there was hope either that Mr. Seaga's more responsible politics was a sign of delayed maturity or that, having been weakened by yet another electoral loss, he was willing to listen to wiser voices in the JLP who believe in more responsible two-party politics. Now we are left to wonder all over again. Is it that Mr. Seaga has failed to mature and that wiser counsel in the JLP do not have a voice? If so, then the JLP would have learned nothing from the last election results and would not have matured after all these years.
FUTURE BIPARTISANSHIP
In one instant we have gone from the beginnings of stable bipartisanship to partisanship with no in-between; not even a period of unstable bipartisanship that could be rescued before it collapsed. One of the flaws of the bipartisanship was the worrying uncertainty over the JLP's (future) leadership and the possible struggles in the party that might upset the two-party engagement. The other flaw was Mr. Seaga's unstable personality. It is one that changes suddenly and dramatically from hot to cold. Within the country and among his own colleagues, Mr. Seaga has been unpredictable and capable of turning from friend to enemy in an instant over the smallest suspicion of being slighted. It is a dangerous world we live in when something as important as civil relations between our parties rest on the co-operation of such a volatile personality.
Hopefully, leaders of the other sectors will fill the void of leadership that Mr. Seaga has created. The business, labour, social and political sectors have a stake that goes beyond Mr. Seaga's legendary misjudgements and habit for miscalculating. Mr. Patterson and his Government remain committed, I'm sure, to a system of government and opposition within a framework of negotiated unity. It is now for all other sectors to get each to the same commitment. We can then build from there so that future bipartisan arrangements cannot be broken willy-nilly and the arrangement takes place within an institutionalised framework with rules and dispute resolution facilities. It cannot rest on individuals alone.
Northern Ireland established a power-sharing political arrangement between its warring political forces. It lasted for eight months. Now, an agreement has been reached to restore the agreement in May. Probably, we can take hope from this.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, Mona, UWI. E-mail: rbuddan@uwimona.edu.jm
