Devon Dick
DELROY CHUCK'S article 'The primacy of the Party' (January 25) rightly accused the People's National Party (PNP) of giving primacy to the party over the nation, but his prescription of following the example of the JLP is another case of 'the primacy of the Party'.
Chuck stated, "Compare the changes of Prime Minister when the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is in power ... The PNP delegates, instead of the elected MPs, determine the new Prime Minister. When Donald Sangster and Hugh Shearer were elected as Prime Minister, the JLP MPs followed the letter of the Jamaican constitution and chose the person who had the government parliamentary majority."
In other words, he wanted 34 PNP MPs to decide for Jamaicans who the next Prime Minister will be. This is also putting too much power in the hands of a political party and the party before the nation.
Unfortunately, in this Black History month, we are still following the colonial mentality of reserving political decisions to a few (oligarchy) instead of the majority (democracy). The idea of the majority of MPs determining the Prime Minister had its genesis in a system which did not allow the enslaved a right to vote.
And even after legal emancipation, the voting franchise was restricted and it depended on property ownership and payment of taxes. Then there was a time when women could not vote.
Political decisions could not be trusted to the masses, only the few wise men, who were Caucasian, educated and wealthy.
If the Spanish or French enslaved Jamaica, our governance system would be imitations of those European powers. We are imitators not innovators.
Unfortunately, forty-odd years after independence our politicians cannot grasp that the old English colonial system is flawed.
In India, the Government has an overbearing bureaucracy inherited from Britain and they still cannot shake it off. West Indians are like the Indians.
Nobody should be Prime Minister without facing the electorate. In fact, the Prime Minister should be elected directly by the people and should serve out his term.
If he or she dies or falls ill or is imprisoned then an interim PM should be elected, whether by delegates or MPs, and should not be called PM until he or she faces the electorate.
Minister Portia Simpson has snubbed the nation debate but there is nothing the majority can do because it is a matter for the 4,000 delegates.
MANDATE
Apart from the fact that delegates watch television and a debate, Team Portia's position shows that it is not advisable to elect a Prime Minister without a mandate from the people and outside of a general election.
The United States is not a democracy. Any arrangement that allows the possibility of someone getting the minority vote to lead is not a democracy. Technically, it is the few Electoral College votes that determine the president.
Jamaica is not a democracy because, as happened once, the political party receiving the fewer number of votes won the majority of seats and formed the Govern-ment. That system needs to go.
I am disappointed, like Dr. Lloyd Barnett, that constitutional reform has been placed on the back-burner.
In the 1970s, Dr. Paul Robertson was responsible for constitutional reform and since then, the oath of allegiance has changed, but there needs to be a change to allow the people to vote for the PM.
Let my people vote.
Rev. Devon Dick is pastor of Boulevard Baptist Church and author of 'Rebellion to Riot: the Church in Nation Building'.
