ALTHOUGH POLITICAL parties are not mentioned in the Jamaican constitution they play a vital role in the administration of public affairs. Indeed, they organise the voting to elect the House of Representatives and nominate members to the Senate.
What the constitution stipulates in Section 70 is that the Governor-General appoints as Prime Minister the member of the House who, in his judgement, is best able to command the confidence of a majority of the elected members; and a similar procedure is set out in Section 80 relating to the Leader of the Opposition.
The political parties whose members are elected to the House simplify the task of the Governor-General in making the appointments. The presumption is that the parties already have established structures identifying their leader.
The current dilemma facing the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is that the long-serving leader, Edward Seaga, is stepping down and those who would succeed him have been unable to organise a coherent procedure to complete the succession.
This failure of consensus is unfortunate and would have been more critical if it happened closer to a General Election; but the urgency to resolve the matter lies in the fact that the JLP has been in opposition for four terms of successive administration by the governing People's National Party (PNP). A fifth term looms unless the JLP can get its act together in good time.
Another complication is in the fact that only one of the two contenders, Bruce Golding and Pearnel Charles, currently has a seat in the House. Thus, if Mr. Golding, who is deemed to be front-runner, were to become the new leader of the JLP at the impending annual conference he could not become Leader of the Opposition since he currently holds no seat in the House.
The fact that court action has been invoked, in effect, to impose a solution to the crisis is an indication of how deep the internal party conflict is. It poses a threat to our two-party democracy which has survived four decades of independence.
We have to hope that the PNP will be better able to handle their own process of succession when the Prime Minister, as he has stated, steps down before the next General Election.
If it takes court action to resolve the current crisis that still does not absolve the leaders of the JLP from finding a way to mend the fractious tendencies it has developed in these latter years. The bipartisan patterns of our political development demand no less. It is long past time for the JLP to cut the petty snippiness and squabblings and get on with the important business of building a viable alternative party to the incumbent administration.
Pretty soon the party may be beyond repair.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
