Delroy Chuck THE OVERWHELMING JLP victory in the Local Government Elections has sent a powerful message to the government and its supporters that all is not well. As PNP Region One chairman, Paul Burke, has confessed, after 14 years in office, the party has run out of excuses!
Just imagine - a government that finds excuses for every problem, every challenge and every failure. The Prime Minister and his ministers must be extremely worried, deeply concerned, as they tread gingerly around the corridors of power, wondering what policies to tinker with, how best to satisfy the electorate, even while meeting the demands of overseas lending agencies.
DEEP QUANDARY
The government is in a deep quandary, a self-inflicted maze, and a stunned silence, as it ponders its next move. If there is one fundamental lesson that the electorate has sent the government, it is simply that it cannot be business as usual.
The unrelenting pile-up of a mountain of debt, the mortgaging of our future and that of future generations, with very little to show for the accumulated debt, is an utter disgrace and a monument to inept governance.
The record of closed factories, downsized and capsized businesses, failed financial institutions, foreclosed homes, job losses and the correlative social agony have frustrated and tormented hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans who now struggle to make ends meet and, quite rightly, blame government policies for their inability to get on with their lives.
The message of the electorate is clear - the country is not on the right track. Will the government read and listen to the message or, in its arrogance, govern as if nothing changed on Thursday, 19th June, 2003? Well, as the Prime Minister puts it cryptically: "We will see what we will see."
INTEREST RATES
If the government is really interested in governing well then its first order of business must be to get the macro-economic variables right. Interest rates and exchange rates need to settle down, monetary policies need to take a backseat and government's fiscal policies need a complete revamping to set the stage for an economic turn-around.
If the government cannot get the macro-economic variables right and, so far, there is no indication that it can, then, as the Prime Minister warns, we will be eating salt out of a wooden spoon. Quite simply, we may as well brace for the inevitable - the hard, and worsening, economic times ahead. For the voters who supported the JLP, the cry is simply for better governance.
For the 11 or 12 parishes with JLP Mayors and administrations, there is a singular message - the people want good management of our local government councils. Here is a golden opportunity for the JLP to demonstrate how effective it can be when it manages an arm of government, how strong it is against corruption and indiscipline, and how well it will spend the diminishing budgets that will come from central government.
Belmont Road, the Headquarters of the JLP, must be the critical watchdog of these JLP councils, as on them will rest the future electoral fortunes of the party.
If these councils can get animals off the streets, ensure the gullies are kept clean, curb the commercialisation of our residential areas, get the residential roads fixed and, generally, perform their roles and functions effectively, then it will be easy sailing for the JLP in future elections.
More importantly, the unity, effort and dignity that characterised the JLP campaign in the recent local government elections must be the underlying thread throughout the governance at the local level. It is time for the country to discern a new JLP, a different JLP and a JLP that puts the country before party and individual selfish interests.
INCOMPETENCE
The JLP Councils can show up the incompetence of the present PNP government by eschewing corruption, exposing poor and wasteful local administration, demanding value for money in every single contract, cleaning and dignifying our towns and communities, and successfully managing the affairs of their parish.
For the majority of the electorate who stayed away from the polls, the message is also clear - they are fed up with the politics of the country, they did not consider local government important, they didn't get any contracts or benefits, they didn't see how one vote matters, or they are simply indifferent or nonchalant to the affairs of the country.
As mayors and councillors are sworn in, the people must wake up to the critical challenges ahead and, together, resolve them. It cannot be business as usual and whether this message is understood by the Parish Councils and/or by Central Government will surely determine our immediate fate.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He can be contacted by e-mail at Delchuck@Hotmail.Com.
