Dear Editor,
I usually refrain from expressing my views about anything in the political arena for various reasons. Among them are the seeming futility of it all and also I value my life in a country where sometimes even a misinterpreted look could get you killed.
But it is hard to remain silent.
I write as the voting for the leadership of the Jamaica Labour Party has just ended (1:20 pm Sunday, November 10).
I simply want to ask: How could whomever wins expect anybody but the fanatics among us to vote for them in a general election? This goes for both parties.
After promises of a campaign which would be free from malice and venom we ended up with a campaign full of nothing but. And this was just an internal election.
Yet we wonder why Kingston College and Calabar fight as they do after Champs, and why people cannot cross imposed lines in some communities.
To me, the just-concluded JLP leadership race is an accurate metaphor for life in this country of ours. Ideas do not contend. It's simply vitriol and cass cass. God, help us.
I want to revisit a comment by Mr Ruddy Spencer, carried in the electronic media, in which he said (not verbatim): We (JLP) can't wait for 15 years to get back to be the government. By that time, all a wi dead and all a wi bankcrupt.
Was this finanlly an admission by a former minister of government that the objective of being the government is to facilitate personal material gain?
Stephen Harrison
St Mary
The no-win of Jamaican politics
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I usually refrain from expressing my views about anything in the political arena for various reasons. Among them are the seeming futility of it all and also I value my life in a country where sometimes even a misinterpreted look could get you killed.
But it is hard to remain silent.
I write as the voting for the leadership of the Jamaica Labour Party has just ended (1:20 pm Sunday, November 10).
I simply want to ask: How could whomever wins expect anybody but the fanatics among us to vote for them in a general election? This goes for both parties.
After promises of a campaign which would be free from malice and venom we ended up with a campaign full of nothing but. And this was just an internal election.
Yet we wonder why Kingston College and Calabar fight as they do after Champs, and why people cannot cross imposed lines in some communities.
To me, the just-concluded JLP leadership race is an accurate metaphor for life in this country of ours. Ideas do not contend. It's simply vitriol and cass cass. God, help us.
I want to revisit a comment by Mr Ruddy Spencer, carried in the electronic media, in which he said (not verbatim): We (JLP) can't wait for 15 years to get back to be the government. By that time, all a wi dead and all a wi bankcrupt.
Was this finanlly an admission by a former minister of government that the objective of being the government is to facilitate personal material gain?
Stephen Harrison
St Mary
The no-win of Jamaican politics
-->