Gleaner columnists, editors and senior reporters at last week's Editors' Forum at which the Prime Minister was special guest.
Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, who is also president of the governing People's National Party (PNP), was the special guest at last Wednesday's Editors' Forum at The Gleaner. The following are excerpts of the Prime Minister's answers in response to questions posed by editors and senior reporters.
ON COMING ELECTION
We are about to embark on an election which is the first in the decade of the new millennium. That in itself makes it a defining election.
It is also an election where for the very first time a party is seeking an unprecedented fourth term. Whether we like it or not, on the campaign trail people speak about the fourth term, but for me it is more about completing a process of economic transformation and social change which we commenced in 1989, which we have advanced considerably but which is not yet completed and which ought not to be endangered by the changing of governmental responsibility at this time.
Everything would suggest that it's going to be a closely contested election. We are prepared for it organisationally and in terms of what we have to offer to the people.
In the case of our party which is in Government, we can't only speak about the promise of what we intend to do, we have to do so in the context of that which we have already achieved and what remains to be done, and we have to indicate our capacity to deliver.
We have already put out long before the elections, our Solid Achievements List, and whatever your own personal or corporate dispositions may be I would assert that everything that has been included in that list of Solid Achievements does in fact represent what we have done. We have done immeasurably more in terms of delivering on our election manifesto (of 1997) than perhaps any other previous administration.
ON PARTY FINANCING
The question of campaign financing for the future is something that this country is going to have to face. We have never ventilated it as a public issue before and therefore it could not be introduced for this campaign, but I don't think it can be avoided forever.
I think you can anticipate that when the issue comes to be discussed there are some who are going to say, well, how can you be finding money for the political parties when you need to spend more money on roads and education and alleviating poverty, et cetera.
But, I think, also, one has to take into account the risks that are inherent in the preservation and enhancement of the democratic process when one is as dependent, as political parties now are, on seeking funding entirely from private sources.
Certainly at the central party level we have instituted a rule that requires first of all, donations above a certain size to be brought to central attention, including mine. This is with a view to permitting our being able to satisfy ourselves that that money is not flowing from tainted sources.
Now, where I think quite frankly we are at greater risk is at the constituency level; and here we have to do two things. We have already alerted all our candidates to the dangers and the consequences of accepting money from tainted sources and we have made it clear to them that if they do and we find out, this will be a ground for their removal.
We, in terms of the Government side, have to avail ourselves of whatever comes to our attention from the political intelligence that is available to us, and that would include looking at particular constituencies where we believe that certain influences could want to exert some undue influence or control, and trying to thwart them by direct instructions that we give to our candidates.
ON THE PNP'S 2002 MANIFESTO
If you are looking for things which are brand new, you are not going to find it. As I have said, we are in a process and processes include time-frames that go beyond five-year spans. Just to give a simple example, Highway 2000 which is already under way was never conceived to happen in the life of a particular administration.
It is an investment in the country and its future. If you move to education, last year I was in Ireland, and as I think you might know, Ireland is the country that has been reflecting perhaps the most dramatic and sustained increase of all the countries in the European Union, and I was asking them what accounted for this and they said to me the investment which we made in education ten years ago. It didn't pay dividends immediately, it's beginning to pay dividends now. So, there are some things that are poised to go. For example, the National Health Insurance Plan that has been the subject of ongoing work, virtually everything is now in place. We expect that that
would begin in calendar year 2003. We put on the table of the House at almost the last sitting before this summer holidays, a position paper on human resource development and more effective co-ordination within the social sector, dealing with things like poverty, land reform, community development. It is not really a policy that is conceived in five-year cycles, it's something that goes up to 2015.
People are always criticising successive Governments that they only think in terms of electoral cycles. We have ventured deliberately to go beyond that. So if you are looking for something which you might call dramatically new and different, you are not going to find it; you not going to find anything that resembles a conversion from Saul to Paul, as is evident in those who now accept the virtues of free education at the secondary school level, but it is going to be something that determines how we move along the path that we have taken to advance the quality society which we seek and to move Jamaica from being a Third World country into being a First World country.
ON SUCCESSION IN THE PARTY
I just want to be very candid about this. I have just celebrated my 68th birthday; I have been involved in the process at different levels since the age of 23. Apart from everything else, I think I have more than earned the right to enjoy some of the useful remainder of my life, free from the pressures and tensions of political office. I also feel that there comes a time when a change is needed.
In the party we have been working very quietly on a process of constant and ongoing renewal. If you look at the present Cabinet there are only two of us who have held ministerial office during the 70s and that is Minister Bertram and myself; and the Cabinet even today is considerably different from the one which I inherited in 1992. I would say without qualification that there is a group of young persons in the party today that are as committed, as skilled, as visionary as any group that I have ever seen in the party during my years of involvement, and I have no doubt whatsoever in my own mind that the continuity and the relevance of the party and the capacity of the party to deal with the changes that are to occur, no questions need to be asked about them.
Now, to the question of a successor, I would simply say this, there are a number of people within the party, some more obvious than others, who I think not only qualify for succession, but who have the capacity to ensure that the that traditions laid by Michael Manley, inherited from Norman Manley, which I hope I have been able to perpetuate and build upon will be continued. I have been looking on some recent cases, even including the Caribbean, where leaders have tried to hand-pick their successors, everyone of which has resulted in disaster. I don't intend to follow that course, I intend to expose all possible claimants to succession, to the breadth of experience which I think is required to enable them to do the job, and once I have done that, our party, which is a democratic party, will I am sure make the right choice.
ON DECLARATION OF ASSETS
I have, as you know, declared publicly what my assets and liabilities are and I have had no problem at all every time an annual declaration is made and a query is directed to me whether I would make it available, being willing to do so. None whatsoever. Whether my own position should be one imposed on every member of the team is something about which I am still hesitant. There is a view that if everybody else is prepared to do it then so should the political directorate or put another way, if the political directorate is prepared to do it then it should insist that anybody, including public servants who are in positions to influence decisions should also be prepared to do it. And, I think we have to really watch, lest in making that kind of requirement we don't in fact discourage people from offering themselves for public service.
In relation to the declaration of assets, I am not sure you are aware that once you are elected you do have to make a return. What you would be doing is going further to say every candidate should make that declaration. But, I don't know exactly what is the value of that, because if the candidate loses, that candidate is really not in a position to influence any decision, and if the candidate wins that candidate is obliged by law to make a declaration of his assets at the time of his election, from the first day of his election. So I don't really believe that we need to go to the extent of saying once you are a candidate you must declare assets. I would say that if you have won you are obliged by law to do so and that seems to me to be sufficient to deal with any potential mischief.
ON GARRISON CONSTITUENCIES
I have been trying and will continue to try to really dismantle garrison politics and to have it totally become a thing of the past. I think to do so several things are required, some of which are already in train, some of which are in the process.
First of all, ceasing to distribute benefits like land and housing along partisan political considerations. That is one of the reasons why, for example, in the PRIDE schemes or in the National Housing Trust schemes there has always been an insistence that it is done on the basis of needs and qualifications rather than on the basis of partisan politics.
In other words, we want to dismantle the garrisons that exist. We don't want to create new garrisons elsewhere.
Secondly, the whole electoral system has to be made to work in a way that ensures one person, one vote, and all the reforms that we have insisted on are intended to ensure that and to reduce the disincentive for people in a particular community to behave in a particularly uniformed fashion, not by persuasion but by coercion.
The third thing that has to happen is that in respect of law and order and the enforcement thereof, there can be no consideration whatsoever as to whether it is a garrison or not a garrison or worse still whether the garrison supports the Government party or the Opposition party. Law and order have to exist everywhere. There must be no place that is immune from the search of the security forces and there must be no place that is harassed by the security forces simply because it has political allegiance of one kind or another.
The instructions to the police are to go for criminals irrespective of what political allegiance they pledge or what colour they appear to support. But it has to be an unrelenting battle that is being fought on a number of fronts simultaneously.
ON FIXED ELECTION DATE
Let me say this. I don't have what you might call a rigid and inflexible ideological position about fixed election dates or floating election dates.
I would simply say the following: we operate essentially a Parliamentary system as distinct from a Presidential system. Were we to move from a Parliamentary system to a Presidential system it may be necessary to consider whether there should be fixed dates certainly for the tenure of the President and perhaps whether there should be fixed terms and conditions under which the President may dissolve the Parliament.
But I don't share the view that having a fixed election date necessarily results in a reduction of political tension or competition, and certainly if you look at the United States where there is a fixed election date, you will find that one election is hardly finished before the campaign for the next election has begun.
This is one of the rare occasions where there is a view coming from the Leader of the Opposition with which I do not find the need to be in disagreement. If for any reason there is a collapse of confidence in the leadership of the country that is so extensive and profound as to warrant a change of Government, there is a mechanism within our legislative system that can be triggered to effect that change, and there is also a process that can ensure that that change does take place by the holding of elections.
The other point I would make, is that in terms of term limits for leaders I think I am extremely flexible. That is to say it is something which I believe needs to be discussed. But all of these things have to be part and parcel of constitutional reform.
