Dear Editor,

I continue to watch Jamaica’s challenge in finding leaders that young people can look up to. I notice from time to time there are positive articles and features about our politicians from both sides, both genders, and all ages.

The Sunday Observer of March 29, 2015 includes two of Jamaica’s most promising politicians: Dr Christopher Tufton, who in one article declares that he is ready to serve, and Raymond Pryce, who is trying to bring us a hospital in Santa Cruz. Coincidentally, both are young, linked to St Elizabeth, well followed by the media, but are from different political parties. Each of them is different from the old-style of politics. They are intelligent, focus on the big picture, think about long-term sustainable development, and always speak on behalf of national development. Still, I wonder if they are the type of politician that we really want when we say we want a new politics.

Perhaps the better question is whether or not we, as a people, including the media, want a new politics for Jamaica or not. For whatever reason, despite their strong positive attributes, neither Tufton nor Pryce seem to be liked by the power brokers in their respective parties. For, if they were, they would have been promoted beyond the levels they now sit.

I am a resident of St Elizabeth North Eastern, and if you listen to some people who say they have influence in PNP politics, Pryce won’t make it to the next election. They seem to want to turn back the hands of time and select someone from the past. For me, as simply as a voter, that would be very sad. For, while I don’t see the amount of curry goat and rum being given away, or the summertime sessions that his predecessor was famous for, we are seeing good things: better schools, better behaviour, attendance at our church functions, our roads being fixed, good representation and presence in Gordon House and, of course, the health centre in the Observer story. This is a very good achievement for Pryce who had promised an improved health centre in his first term, and he delivered. Now he is moving up that promise to a hospital by 2020. How strange, a politician who makes specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound (SMART) promises.

Tufton also had good achievements and we see what happened to him. I am now keeping my eyes on Pryce to see whether he will survive for a second term or whether he, like Tufton, will be too new for the old-style politics that we voters seem to prefer. It would be sad for the PNP, which was once a very progressive party, to turn its back on its own success and turn back our development in St. Elizabeth, the way the JLP has done.

Orandi Nicholson

Santa Cruz

orandi.nicks95@gmail.com