The Westminster system of government that we adopted at independence in 1962 is predicated on the notion that men and women offer themselves for service to their country as a way of giving back to a nation that nurtured them. It presupposed that you would have achieved some level of success in your chosen vocation. In other words, the intention was not to make it your career, but simply a way of giving back.
This is why it has always been so easy for legislators in the United Kingdom (UK) to step aside as soon as there is the slightest hint of improper behaviour under their watch. After all, they always have their career to go back to.
Once we adopted the Westminster model in Jamaica, we do what we always do so well. We proceeded to bastardize it. People who have never run anything in their lives, or enjoyed any measure of success, enter the field of politics to make it a career and hopefully get rich. In the process, we have witnessed the routine corruption of every known institution in the society. Systems and laws are strategically created with loopholes so large that any criminal mind can penetrate with the greatest ease.
Unfortunately, good and honest people from civil society have traditionally been culpable due to their disconnected posture with regard to this society. Many have their bodies in Jamaica but their minds in North America, Britain, or elsewhere. And it doesn’t matter that so many of them have never even been to these places.
It is this very disconnectedness that has enabled the hustlers to take over the political process. I am old enough to remember with fondness some fine politicians of the 60s and 70s or even the 1980s. These were men and women for whom politics was a noble way to serve their communities and, by extension, their country. So many of them exited the political landscape financially poorer than they entered, but richer for the fact that they did serve their constituents with distinction and honour. It saddens me to say that looking around at the present crop of politicians I see few who remind me of this group of fine public servants. I recall the occasion when the then Government took a decision to re-interpret the role of the Senate. Originally this body had the critical role as the deliberative body in the Parliament. At the time, the Government realised that there was a paucity of talent in the then House of Representatives, from which the Cabinet must be selected, and the only solution they saw was to appoint persons to the Senate to fill these roles. Hence the constitutional amendments were enacted. Since then, the Senate has largely become a waiting area for prospective candidates for the Lower House or just a parking lot for losers in earlier general elections, awaiting the next election. The resultant effect is a Senate that is essentially redundant. Gone are the days when the bicameral Parliament consisting of the House of Representatives and Senate, had serious senators on both sides, offering critical discussions and opinions on policy matters affecting an entire nation.
Further corruption of the constitutional structure is what appears as a tendency for politicians to treat representation as a family business, where the children of retiring politicians expect their seats to be handed to their kids. Not to mention the current reality in the House of Representatives where the Speaker of the House happens to be the wife of the current Prime Minister. This stands in the way of all checks and balances in the government structure.
The Judiciary, the Parliament and the Executive represent the three arms of our Government. The head of the Parliament is effectively the Speaker of the House. Having the Speaker and the head of the executive branch — the Prime Minister — in a matrimonial relationship should suggest to any serious constitutional observer that this is a critical breakdown of any system of checks and balance in the Government.
We saw and lived through the ugliness of this arrangement in the Government prior to the recent election. Clearly the country was okay with this atrocity that voters have allowed a repeat in the current Administration.
The time is fast approaching when we should, as a followership, put a stop to this periodic feel-good façade during general elections, if all we are doing is swapping one group of hustlers for another. Serious nation building demands far more. Serious democracy is hard work. In fact, it demands an enlightened and involved followership.
Jamaica does not have this currently. Without this, hustlers will continue to see public service as a way to get rich quick. After all, few people are watching.
If we are going to continue with the Westminster system of government, then let us also take into consideration the spirit of its very existence.
