Michael Abrahams | The erosion of our democracy

Tuesday, March 19, was a dark day for Jamaica’s democracy. During his Budget Debate presentation, Opposition Leader Mark Golding mentioned the issue of the prime minister’s spouse being the House Speaker and its incongruity with the principle of the Speaker being independent of the Government. Things escalated quickly. Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his colleagues boisterously expressed their disapproval of Golding’s comments, climaxing with the prime minister gathering his belongings and departing the building, with his colleagues literally following the leader. This event was unprecedented in Jamaica’s history: The Government walked out of Parliament.

As Golding stood there, after watching the exodus of disgruntled Labourites, Deputy House Speaker Heroy Clarke announced that with the Opposition’s small minority, there were not enough attendants to constitute a quorum. This revelation brought an end to the sitting and Golding’s presentation, at least in Gordon House. Undaunted, he literally took his message to the streets, completing his presentation before an appreciative audience outside the building on Duke Street, in front of the old parliamentary building.

The hostility of the Government did not end there. The disingenuous narratives began to fly. One was that Golding attacked House Speaker Juliet Holness. But he did not. Golding said: “When the former Speaker was forced to resign as a result of an Integrity Commission investigation, the move to replace her with the wife of the prime minister, so that the head of Parliament is now the spouse of the head of Government, does not sit well with the tradition that the Speaker must act independently of the government of the day.”

RATIONAL CONCERN

There was no attack. Golding simply expressed a rational concern. Another ludicrous accusation being spread is that Golding’s remarks were made because of the Speaker’s gender. This, too, is a false narrative. Golding’s comments were based on a principle: that the House Speaker should be impartial and that if that person, regardless of gender, is married to the prime minister, it sets the stage for a conflict of interest.

What is also ridiculous are calls for Golding to apologise to Mrs Holness. But apologise for what? Golding merely voiced a concern. On the other hand, the prime minister and his colleagues behaved disrespectfully by shouting at, and walking out on, the Opposition leader while he was speaking, leaving him without a quorum and thereby sabotaging his presentation. It is Holness and his crew who owe not only Golding an apology, but also the Jamaican people, as they deprived us of the opportunity to hear the entirety of his presentation, which we are entitled to. By embarking on a campaign to discredit Golding by falsely accusing him of inappropriate behaviour, when they were the ones being inappropriate, the Government is gaslighting the Jamaican people.

Not only is the Government gaslighting us, but it is also deflecting. While they focus their energy on destroying Golding’s character, they are avoiding the concern he was addressing during his presentation, which is the Government’s lack of transparency and accountability, and perceived corruption.

The argument that the Budget Debate was not the time or place for Golding to express his concerns about the Speaker is invalid. The segment of Golding’s presentation that was sabotaged was one dedicated to the issue of governance. Before addressing the Speaker issue, Golding spoke of the move by the Holness administration in 2020 to take away the chairmanship of most parliamentary committees from the Opposition, an action that, according to Golding, “has weakened that mechanism of holding the Government to account”.

He also addressed the delaying of the tabling of reports from the auditor general, who is responsible for checking the spending of public money by looking at whether it has been used appropriately and for the stated purposes. Previously, reports from the auditor general were tabled expeditiously. However, starting with the previous Speaker, Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert, and continuing with Juliet Holness, the tabling of reports from this entity is being significantly delayed.

When the walkout occurred, Golding was about to get into the issue of the “illicit six” (six parliamentarians being investigated by the Integrity Commission for “illicit enrichment”) and the fact that the prime minister’s statutory declarations of assets, liabilities, and income had not been certified and published by the Integrity Commission for “successive years”.

ANOMALOUS SITUATIONS

Some of Golding’s concerns address some uniquely anomalous situations. For example, I have been unable to find any other democracy today where the country’s leader’s statutory declarations have not been certified and published for years, or where the leader’s spouse is the House Speaker.

However, there remains a burning question for the People’s National Party. Why didn’t they object when Mrs Holness was appointed House Speaker six months ago? Not only did they not object, but they enabled her appointment, as her nomination was seconded by Leader of Opposition Business in the House Phillip Paulwell. In fact, the writing was on the wall from as far back as September 2020, when Mrs Holness was appointed deputy House Speaker. Why did they not ‘ring the alarm’ then? Their excuse, that by seconding her nomination they were following tradition, is weak. So what if it is a tradition? One can break with tradition. As a matter of fact, breaking with tradition, especially if it is for the greater good, is the stuff heroes, pioneers and trailblazers are made of. If the Opposition is uncomfortable with the present situation with the House Speaker, they must shoulder some of the responsibility for this and be taken to task for their inaction.

Regarding the Government, what we saw last Tuesday was, in my opinion, an egregious abuse of power. I have also observed suboptimal accountability and transparency, arrogance, disingenuity, gaslighting, deflection, and the censoring and censuring of the Opposition leader; a rancid potpourri of features reeking with the stench of autocracy. Is this where we are heading? We should all be very concerned.

Michael Abrahams is an obstetrician and gynaecologist, social commentator and human-rights advocate. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and michabe_1999@hotmail.com, or follow him on X , formerly Twitter, @mikeyabrahams.