No manifestos to debate

Questions are being raised about the absence of manifestos for both political parties, a week shy of the local government election, even as campaigning intensifies.

Representatives of both the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the opposition People’s National Party (PNP) indicated during one of two national debates put on by the Jamaica Debates Commission (JDC) that the documents containing the parties’ policies and aims for local government were ready and would be released soon.

Adjunct lecturer in political science and Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) Executive Director Mickel Jackson said that while the second of the two debates proved to be well-rounded and fulfilled what a political debate was meant to do, she was concerned that neither party had published a manifesto.

Jackson said the first debate was disappointing as representatives of both parties went on the attack and played a blame game, which did a disservice to Jamaicans.

“The main concern for me, having watched both political debates, is that a manifesto is being promised but it is somehow being held so close to the chest of the political parties that the people have no real sense of what the parties are campaigning on,” said Jackson.

She called this problematic.

“How is it that you expect individuals to exercise this great sense of civic participation when they have no reference to make to a detailed plan coming from either political party?” said Jackson.

She said the structure of the debates was another sore point, arguing that it lent itself to a two-party stronghold with powers being transferred between the JLP and the PNP.

She questioned why other political parties had not been included to either critique and hold the two main parties to greater account or at least pose questions.

Jackson said that that was a missing platform.

Still, she said there were standout moments, including Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie’s reference to the local sustainability development plan. She said this was important as it sets the framework and vision for each parish and their aims.

Similarly, she said PNP representatives spoke extensively on the local governance act and other accompanying pieces of legislation.

“It sets the framework of how local government ought to be working. The question is, having heard the framework of how they ought to be working, are they working in that regard? Think that’s a missing piece for us at JFJ.

“What people don’t know. We get a lot of complaints about local government issues. You hear people asking questions about noise and where to go and you find that the local authorities pass the buck among each other and citizens don’t know what to do,” said Jackson.

She further questioned whether the municipalities were meeting their requirements or having the type of citizen participation that was expected.

PUBLIC AIRING

Jackson called for the public airing of local government meetings. She suggested that this would assist in educating Jamaicans on the functions of municipal corporations.

Veteran journalist and attorney-at-law Dionne Jackson Miller poured cold water on the first of the two debates, noting that while questions fielded were good, they were not answered.

She said it was apparent that both sides came prepared with set speeches, which were delivered no matter what was asked.

Jackson said she and others were left feeling “extremely frustrated”, mentioning that if the questions had been answered, Jamaicans could have left with a sense of how the parties are thinking about the future of local government and how it fits into the governance structure.

The second debate, the broadcaster rated higher, noting that it was evident that debaters listened to the questions and made attempts to answer.

“You can take issue with the answers, but it wasn’t the kind of complete disconnect that we saw in the first debate,” she said.

“The difficulty I had listening to them was that the JLP side, if you follow them, everything is hunky-dory with local government, and we all know it’s not. The problem I had with the Opposition side is that they were answering as if they were in opposition. Listening to them you wouldn’t have at all known that they controlled several of the councils,” Jackson assessed.

She said all the opposition party’s responses sounded as though they were coming from a space of ‘when we get into office’.

“I thought that I would be hearing from them, I would be hearing more of ‘in the councils we run this is working well because of how we’re running it, and we plan to do more of that’. I didn’t get that sense at all,” said Jackson.

Meanwhile, the JDC yesterday expressed satisfaction with the execution of the series of debates ahead of the February 26 poll.

The commission said in the first debate, the JLP team had 28 inputs while the PNP had 34. The JLP team gave 25 inputs in the second debate while the PNP gave 28.

The JDC said in the first debate almost a dozen topics were covered, with 14 questions raised.

For the second debate, questions were raised around the conditions of markets and cemeteries, streamlining the number of municipal corporations, water and sewage infrastructure and management, increasing market fees, the approach to disaster-risk management, management of traffic congestion around the granting of permits to stage events, the regulatory and actual requirements for environment impact assessments, implementing solar street lights, managing illegal vending, and the granting of building permits and monitoring compliance with them.

Thirteen questions were raised of the debaters, including two follow ups. Five of them came from social media.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com