Jamaica 2016 election: Conundrum or crossroads?
JAMAICANS go to the polls next week after four years of deep economic malaise under the current PNP administration; however, the Opposition JLP should be under no illusion that these hard times will bring them the incremental voter support needed to topple perhaps the most successful political machine in the Western Hemisphere. POLITICAL ECONOMIC Roger Brown is the founder and managing director of Panama-based Risk Control SA, which provies investment advisory, asset protection and offshore financial services to international clients. Through Professionally Panama, its business concierge platform, it also provides custom corporate, health and hospitality services.
For over a generation, the PNP has had an unbreakable electoral lease on Jamaica House, save for a recent period when they briefly lost the key; having found it, they almost lost it again. Staring down the barrel of international bankruptcy, they acceded to punitive IMF terms, picked up the tax axe, and started hacking; it was hard work, but they saved the house… only problem is that the lease is up for renewal yet again.
In 1989, when the modern lease began, the J$/US$ exchange rate was $5.50 to US$1; when the lease expires next week, the J$/US$ exchange rate will be apx $122:1 with lease payments devaluing by a staggering 2,000 per cent over 27 years, the owners of the House (ie, Jamaicans), appear to have been serially shafted. Why has the Jamaican electorate not chosen to better protect their pockets with their votes? They have often tried, but between JLP leadership factionalism and PNP mastery of the district ground game, it’s been no contest; while the popular vote counts are often very close, the current electoral system distorts this measure, and marginal PNP wins have generally resulted in legislative majorities.
Then there’s the usual canard: better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, right? The last time the JLP held the lease, the Chief Tenant was widely perceived as protecting an international criminal in the Coke affair… who needs that kind of drama? Really bad for tourism, plus the US Feds were going ballistic… so, the JLP was summarily evicted.
CONUNDRUM
In Jamaica, the wheels of political justice grind slowly: for the JLP to seize the keys to Jamaica House again, it will have to have employed a carefully calibrated constituency algorithm (a la Ted Cruz in Iowa) which identifies and activates potential swing votes in specific districts. It is the lack of this rifleshot ground game that has long been the JLP’s undoing.
Its chances of success this time around would also have been much improved if their 10-point growth plan was much simpler and better articulated: “Cut Taxes, Grow Jobs, Crush Crime” has a nice ring to it. While “Make America Great Again” is not exactly Churchillian rhetoric, an alienated independent majority of American voters (40 per cent) is getting the simple message and mobilising on an epic scale.
Unlike America, lacking a rebel populist like Trump (or Butch!) as an alternative, the 40 per cent of the Jamaican electorate who usually don’t vote have demonstrated neither the will nor the energy to be politically enfranchised, despite being economically distressed. This Absent Majority holds Jamaica hostage to the Orange Minority, since populist revolt is no longer in the JLP play book.
This is certainly a conundrum, if not a political dead end; while a nation deserves the leadership it chooses, if so many choose not to choose, what then? Political apathy need not necessarily equate to political lethargy: in many other countries, formerly silent majorities have often expressed their political alienation and economic anger in the streets… then, change happens fast… nothing scares the power brokers like the urban antipathy of the forgotten masses.
DEEP CHANGE
Jamaicans should not only be getting angry, but be thinking about how to get even… both with a rigged political hierarchy and a failed economic strategy. How did they get in this situation, and how can they ensure that future leases of Jamaica House will be properly honoured? All broken systems can be fixed: what’s to stop Jamaica from embracing deep change?
Let’s examine five political fixes and five economic drivers that could radically improve Jamaica’s bleak future:
1-Expand voting rights to the diaspora
2-Fixed electoral schedule
3-One-term limit to PM office
4-Compulsory forensic audit of all legislators
5-Mandatory prison terms for state corruption offences.
1-Radical debt restructuring
2-Constitutional debt service limits
3-Divestment of all non-core govt functions (including UDC and Petrojam)
4-Simplification of the tax code
5-Phased dollarisation of bank deposits.
None of these prescriptions, taken alone, will fix much; but eliminating whimsical electoral dynasties, expanding the educated electorate, and severely sanctioning state looters, taken together, would result in a political landscape where power is shared rather than taken.
The economic fixes are equally tough nuts, but well worth the struggle: there is no viable economic future for Jamaica without comprehensive debt restructuring, and no financial safeguards without constitutional protection from serial debt binges.
Non-core state agencies should either perform to current fiduciary standards, or be locked tightly shut before they hire more hacks or squander more state resources; a tax code empathetic to the common man, and a banking system weaned off a Jamacan dollar debt cycle are also achievable game-changers.
CROSSROADS
Neither the PNP nor the JLP embrace change easily; but whoever wins next week is morally bound to tell the nation some hard truths and chart a course much different than the one sailed for the past generation…because the past course has only led to debt, devaluation, and distress.
Jamaicans at heart understand that IMF compliance is not a shiny achievement badge, but a shabby mark of shame.. perhaps compulsory, but shameful still; there is no honour in higher taxes, no dignity in devaluation, and precious little pride in ‘staying the course’.
So will Jamaica remain adrift in a sea of discontent, or be guided to safe harbour? Will the Green Tide rise from the quiet depths? Will the Orange Wave return again as a tsunami? Truth be told, it doesn’t much matter: Jamaica’s true test comes not next Election Day, but in the days thereafter.
Real change will mean hard choices and honest answers from the victor: this will be the real political crossroads. True leaders empower their people, rather than merely perpetuating their own power… a Jamaican political lesson yet unlearned.
Pawns to a political hierarchy that offers few real choices, struggling on the margins of a shrunken economy, their hopes dimmed and their fears real, Jamaicans will soon put their fate and the nation’s future on the line…desperately hoping that maybe this time, things will be different…that maybe just this once, their leaders will find unity in peace, and strength in a common purpose.