There’s a bit of hand wringing in some circles over Mrs Kamina Johnson Smith’s challenge to Baroness Patricia Scotland for the Commonwealth secretary general post. The argument being put forward is that the challenge has somehow damaged Jamaica’s standing on the international stage and has created discord in the Commonwealth bloc, made up largely of former British colonies.

However, the fact that Senator Johnson Smith lost the challenge by three votes (24-27) — which meant that three of the 54 member states abstained — suggests that the group of nations was already divided and there are concerns about the Commonwealth’s effectiveness globally.

The organisation, we hold, lost a lot of its clout and influence after Nigerian Chief Emeka Anyaoku departed the secretary general post in 2000. During his tenure the Commonwealth earned a reputation for mobilising democratic values, such as the holding periodic free and fair elections and upholding human dignity.

The tenure of his predecessor, Guyanese Sir Shridath Ramphal, which ran from 1975 to 1990, was equally outstanding.

Readers old enough will recall that the 1979 Heads of Government summit in Zambia helped to bring an end to white minority rule in Rhodesia, which became majority-ruled Zimbabwe in 1980.

Following on that, the 1991 summit in Zimbabwe saw the Commonwealth increase international pressure to bring an end to South Africa’s racist system of apartheid.

Sir Shridath also placed the Commonwealth as a strong advocate of the Third World which, no doubt, played a role in growing its membership from 34 nations in mid-1975 to 49 in 1990.

Since then, however, the Commonwealth has not been able to strengthen its influence, mostly, some say, because it is not a trading bloc. It has also been accused of not doing enough to assist its poorer member states economically.

Of note, last week Mr Mwambutsya Ndebesa, a political historian at Makerere University in Uganda, was reported as saying, “The Commonwealth is relevant, but the question is to whom? Do governments get political capital out of it?”

We note that yesterday, at the end of the Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda, the leaders issued a communiqué stating that the bloc intends to tackle some of the major challenges facing member states.

Most noticeably, though, as this newspaper’s Editor-at-Large Mr Arthur Hall reported from Kigali, the communiqué was short on timelines for action.

The organisation, we hold, has a lot of work to do, especially now as countries try to recover from the devastating impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic and are staring another global recession in the face.

Senator Johnson Smith’s challenge, we believe, has injected new life into the bloc. It is our hope that it will use that energy well.

And, the fact that she conducted her campaign with decency, dignity, and respect, should redound to the benefit of the organisation.