Dear Editor,
Jamaicans are very much caught up in the guessing game about when Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller will call the election. But unless the ruling People's National Party has the gift of prophecy and know for sure that a catastrophe of the magnitude of Hurricane Gilbert will befall the nation between now and December 2016, it would do well to heed the brilliant analysis of Observer columnist Christopher Burns in his Sunday, November 15, 2015 piece in The Agenda. He is spot on.
It's been said that the worst mistake in love, war, sport, and politics, is to believe your own propaganda. We all recall the "150,000 strong can't be wrong" proclamation of Michael Manley in 1980. The current Government may indeed have many accomplishments to its credit. The problem is, however, the average voter doesn't know about them. A hectic, noisy, partisan three-week campaign is a woefully short time in which to close this vast information gap.
In our Westminster system, incumbent prime ministers only call elections if their mandate runs out or if they are reasonably confident of winning. Neither condition exists now. To call an election now in the wake of the health care crisis is to wave a red flag in front of a bull. It would mean the outcome would depend almost entirely on the leadership debate, where one slip/draw of the tongue could lose it all.
Unless Simpson Miller wants to commit political suicide, this is not the kind of gamble any but the most incorrigible punter would take.
Errol W A Townshend
Ontario, Canada
ewat@rogers.com
How to commit political suicide
-->
Jamaicans are very much caught up in the guessing game about when Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller will call the election. But unless the ruling People's National Party has the gift of prophecy and know for sure that a catastrophe of the magnitude of Hurricane Gilbert will befall the nation between now and December 2016, it would do well to heed the brilliant analysis of Observer columnist Christopher Burns in his Sunday, November 15, 2015 piece in The Agenda. He is spot on.
It's been said that the worst mistake in love, war, sport, and politics, is to believe your own propaganda. We all recall the "150,000 strong can't be wrong" proclamation of Michael Manley in 1980. The current Government may indeed have many accomplishments to its credit. The problem is, however, the average voter doesn't know about them. A hectic, noisy, partisan three-week campaign is a woefully short time in which to close this vast information gap.
In our Westminster system, incumbent prime ministers only call elections if their mandate runs out or if they are reasonably confident of winning. Neither condition exists now. To call an election now in the wake of the health care crisis is to wave a red flag in front of a bull. It would mean the outcome would depend almost entirely on the leadership debate, where one slip/draw of the tongue could lose it all.
Unless Simpson Miller wants to commit political suicide, this is not the kind of gamble any but the most incorrigible punter would take.
Errol W A Townshend
Ontario, Canada
ewat@rogers.com
How to commit political suicide
-->