Devon Dick

Today, British Prime Minister Tony Blair addres-ses the annual Labour Party conference on its final day which will be his final as party leader.

People within the party have called for him to go because of his taking the country into a war on false premise and for following the Bush administration's foreign policy slavishly.

So unpopular is the Bush administration that on the anniversary of 9/11, the leader of Margaret Thatcher's party, the Conservatives, David Cameron said the Bush Administration's foreign policy was 'simplistic' and was more hurtful than Chavez's calling Bush a 'devil.' So Blair has to go!

Perhaps, Blair consulted former PNP leader, the Most Honourable P.J. Patterson about how to bow out of political party leadership. Blair announced that this will be his last but still did not give a specific date and it is anyone's guess.

Problem

Part of the problem is that politicians do not know when to quit because they do not want to give up power. I learnt this at the feet of educator the late Howard Jackson. Jackson is known as a famous coach of girls athletics, with his most significant protégé being Olympian Juliet Cuthbert. What is not so well known was that 'Jackie' was a good domino player and was my regular partner at Morant Bay High School. So when he left Morant Bay High School to become principal of the Mannings School in the 1980s, I was the guest speaker at the first graduation exercise he had as the principal. And in giving his charge he told the students that their elders will not give up power. They only give it up due to ill health or if it is taken away. This is true of politicians.

And persons who want Blair to go do not want general elections but for the baton to pass on to someone in the Labour Party to enhance their electoral chances. So the motives are suspect why some want a Party Leader to resign or retire.

Another reason politicians do not know when to go is because there is no retirement age for politicians. So whereas politicians in Jamaica mandate that principals have to retire at age 60, politicians can go on into their 70s, and 80s. There needs to be a retirement age so that they know when it is time to go.

Furthermore, the British Westminster model is flawed. A party leader has no terminus. Whereas in the American presidential system, though not in the senatorial case, the President is limited to two terms, there is no such limit in the Westminster model. It is an open-ended contract.

The Westminster model puts the onerous task of when a Prime Minister should retire on the individual. There needs to be a system where the electorate vote directly for the Prime Minister and not that MPs decide who the Prime Minister should be. Then the Prime Minister would get a mandate from the people and the people decide the retirement.

Constitutional change

Unfortunately, we have not shown much inclination for constitutional change, even after 44 years of political independence. Dr. Paul Robertson was responsible for constitutional reform from the 1970s and very little has been done. Our former colonial masters are reforming the House of Lords (Senate) but not us! Thank God for former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson who forcefully changed the Oath of Allegiance so that politicians and Justices of the Peace do not swear to a foreign sovereign but to the people of Jamaica.

The Westminster model needs to be changed and in so doing could inform our political system so that our leaders can know when to resign or retire.

Rev Devon Dick is pastor of Boulevard Baptist Church and author of "Rebellion to Riot": the Church in Nation Building."