Dawn Ritch, Columnist

The Local Government elections held last week were met with a yawn from the voters. The rest of Jamaica closed early, and battened down for the violence.

Despite spending a war chest overflowing with gold in September, the Jamaica Labour party (JLP) won the general election by just a few seats. In the local government elections last week, they also played lots of radio commercials in an effort to motivate their supporters.

On the other hand, the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) hardly spent anything on advertising, yet they managed to double their parish council count from 2003, despite losing the general election three months ago. St. Ann resulted in a tie, and the ruling JLP nearly lost the St. Elizabeth and St. Mary parish councils as well.

Public disillusionment with the party in power has already set in. On the same local government turnout of 40 per cent, the PNP has quadrupled its parish council tally. They only got control of Portland after the 2003 elections because its chairman crossed over to them from the JLP.

Bruce Golding has been in office just three months, yet, he has already lost the JLP's grip on the parish councils. The only conclusion from the election is that the people of Jamaica find his performance thus far as prime minister, completely underwhelming.

JLP Members of Parliament Everald Warmington and Bobby Montague said publicly that whoever didn't go out to vote for their party would not get hurricane relief cheques, or the roads fixed in their districts. Sadly, Mr. Warmington was excused for this approach by yet another JLP MP, this time, Speaker of the House and attorney-at-law Delroy Chuck.

A bizarre strategy

Interestingly, the JLP party leader and Prime Minister, Golding, has done nothing publicly to distance himself from any of this. It seems a bizarre strategy to unleash upon one's own supporters. Nobody likes to be told how to vote, or face severe sanctions. That's supposed to be a matter of individual choice.

None of this I suppose, will please letter-writer A.N. McLean, who has taken great exception to my column 'Class vs Classless'. But, it must be noted that the behaviour of Warmington, Montague and Chuck is the epitome of classlessness.

McLean would like me to "go back to election night and listen to Mrs. Simpson Miller's speech." What is it that upset him so? Is it because she said "This election is too close ... It's not over yet!"

That upset quite a lot of people. But she is right. It's not over yet. The PNP has about five electoral outcomes before the courts, one of which it has already won. In a razor-thin election result, every seat matters. And there's nothing rude, classless nor vindictive about that. It's just the plain truth, however unpalatable it may be to some.

If the Jamaica Labour Party will not let even its own supporters rest in peace, it's hardly likely that they will consent to having the courts put Portia Simpson Miller back in power. As her parliamentary seat count grows, therefore, you can look for the Prime Minister to call a snap general election some time early next year.

The Prime Minister says that Simpson Miller would have found some other excuse to pull out of the Vale Royal talks. Does anybody need an excuse to pull out of the Vale Royal talks? Those talks have been going on and off for years now, and the country still hasn't seen any benefit either from them, or the default position. Vale Royal is nothing but an excuse for governmental indecision, procrastination and tom-foolery. Only a foolish Opposition Leader grateful for a photo-opportunity would attend them. Having to talk to Golding only makes them more hopeless.

It should be noted that never in our history has the chairman of the Jamaica Police Federation (JPF) ever had a wry word to say publicly about the police commissioner, much less the minister of national security. But, so broken is the State's authority under Golding's leadership, that this is precisely what occurred last week.

Federation quite disturbed

Another newspaper reports that Corporal Raymond Wilson, JPF chairman said: "The Police Federation is quite disturbed that to date, we have not heard nor seen anything that we believe is any immediate step by the Minister of National Security to address the situation where law enforcement officers are being deliberately targeted by criminals. We know exactly what is motivating them (criminals): They are motivated by the fact that nobody seems to care, especially our employers."

This public expression of a lack of faith is not only in Security Minister Derrick Smith, but the Government as a whole. The Jamaican police have been isolated by the State, and have been obliged to take note of it.

Golding is so busy pleasing all the interests which brought him to power, that he is unable to govern properly. He has, therefore, effectively alienated the staff of the entire public service.

The private sector, media and non-governmental organisations used to be the conscience of this country. They have all fallen silent before the palpably increased mayhem and carnage befalling the island. And this is despite being governed by the most irresponsible administration it has ever been our misfortune to elect to office.

Three months into the Portia Simpson Miller administration, she had done only one quarter of the foreign travelling that Bruce Golding has. Not a word is said about that. But whole forests were felled at the time to provide the newsprint to comment on hers. Yet with all that establishment bias overwhelmingly in his favour, Golding still couldn't manage to hold on to the JLP parish council tally last week.