Political parties urged to tone down 'incendiary and irresponsible' rhetoric

Political commentator Lloyd B Smith is calling on Jamaica’s two main political parties to tone down platform rhetoric which he said has become “incendiary and irresponsible”, and is contributing to heightened political tensions across the country.

“There ought to be an effort to get both leaders along with their general secretaries at some point sitting around a table and coming up with some basic agreements, a kind of truce so to speak as to the way forward,” Smith told The Gleaner.

He contends that political tensions have increased when compared with the last two elections because the bases of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP) are equally “charged” up.

“In the last two elections to some extent, the PNP was not as energised as it is now. In 2020, thousands of comrades stayed away from the polls for a number of reasons, and in the 2016 election there was a tremendous amount of disunity as well as disenchantment,” he said.

He noted, too, that the “stakes are high” for both parties, and expressed concern that this election would become violent.

Smith pointed to the recent incident in Central Kingston where member of parliament Donovan Williams and his campaign team were reportedly shot at while they were in the area mounting campaign paraphernalia.

He emphasised that although the police have yet to present evidence that it was politically motivated, there have been insinuations from the JLP that that is the case.

He said while the party leaders have a responsibility to send the right signal to followers about how they should behave, the candidates are equally obligated.

But Smith charged that the quality of people putting themselves up for election has declined.

“The type of candidates that are being put forward in some of these constituencies, the men and women are not of a certain stature in terms of how they relate to their followers and very often what happens therefore is that in their bid to acquire power, they pander to them, and allow them to become volatile and irresponsible in terms of how they behave out there,” he said.

He called on the JLP and the PNP to implement guidelines for candidate conduct in an election.

“The candidates have a responsibility to keep their campaigns in a sober, responsible way,” he asserted.

- Sashana Small

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