Editorial | Better way to choose president

Elections, indeed, have consequences. The political party that wins them gets to form the government and to appoint most of the key officers of the State.

But that is not the philosophy that The Gleaner believes should underpin how this country chooses to represent its symbol of sovereignty and national aspirations.

That is why we disagree profoundly with the Constitutional Reform Committee’s (CRC) recommendation for how the president of a republican Jamaica should be nominated and elected, especially in circumstances when there is no consensus between the Government and the political Opposition.

The selection process for the president must, from the start, be far more inclusive, moving beyond the sole domain of politicians, to involve a wider plane of stakeholders, including civil society institutions.

Jamaica long ago reached a consensus on transitioning from a monarchy, with the British king as its head of state, but agonised over what kind of president it wanted. The island’s two main political parties, the governing Jamaica Labour Party and the People’s National Party, compromised on a non-executive president, which is what was reinforced by the CRC.

The debate now is over the mechanism Jamaica chooses and confirms the president, who will largely exercise powers now vested in the governor general, the king’s representative on the island.

CRC’S PROPOSAL

The CRC has proposed an arrangement not substantially dissimilar to the system used by English-speaking Caribbean countries that have opted for non-executive presidencies – Trinidad and Tobago, Commonwealth of Dominica, and Barbados. Except that the CRC failed, this newspaper believes, to take sufficiently into account Jamaica’s history of hyper-partisan, tribal politics, or the low levels of trust citizens have for the institutions of government and governance.

Under the CRC’s proposal, Jamaica’s president would be elected for a seven-year term by an electoral college of both Houses of Parliament, although the members of each chamber would cast their secret ballots separately.

The attempt, in the first instance, would be to reach a political consensus on the candidate between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, in which event confirmation would require a two-thirds majority of either chamber. Getting this supermajority, in this instance, would, on its face, be easy.

If there is no agreement on a candidate between the prime minister and the Opposition leader, either could nominate a candidate who would contest the election in procedures similar to what would be obtained for a consensus candidate.

However, in this case, rather than a two-thirds majority, confirmation would require the affirmative vote of only the majority of all members of either chamber, voting separately.

Put differently, the bar would be lowered in favour of the governing party, which, otherwise would, given the configuration of the Senate, require at least one member of the opposition voting with it to acquire a two-thirds majority.

“This exception, which allows for separate nominations, and confirmation without a supermajority, takes into account the political realities of our democratic system of governance,” the CRC argued. “While it makes an important concession, it also provides a solution, through the application of majority rule, to a problem where gridlock exists.”

In other words, the consequences of elections.

NOT IN AGREEMENT

In this particular circumstance, The Gleaner does not agree.

The Constitutional Reform Committee abrogated its responsibility to creative thinking, and the proposal highlights the paucity of public consultation in its work. The recommendation is the lazy way out of gridlock.

The commission will probably point out that the constitutions of the majority of regional countries with non-executive presidents do not require supermajorities for their confirmation, or any complex arrangements for their nominations.

However, we would note that the most recent Commonwealth Caribbean country to become a republic, Barbados, requires the president to receive a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers of parliament. That stands even if there is no consensus on a candidate between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, in which event, either, as well as 10 members of the House, can nominate candidates.

In this situation, the person who becomes the president is assured, at least psychologically, of enjoying the political support of a supermajority in parliament.

Jamaica’s situation, we hold, demands even more than that. It requires, at the very least, a much broader national consultation on the choice of the president and a confirmation vote along more than party lines.

It is not beyond the imagination of Jamaicans to fashion such a system. After all, they designed the Election Commission of Jamaica (ECJ), which rescued the island’s elections system.