UNIA’s Golding wants elected head of state

WESTERN BUREAU:

Steven Golding, president of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), is urging lawmakers involved in the reforming of the Jamaican constitution to empower Jamaicans to vote for an executive president instead of a ceremonial head of state, outside of the existing partisan structure.

Golding said that based on what he has been hearing from the Marlene Malahoo Forte-led Constitutional Reform Committee, which is spearheading the effort to cut ties with the British monarch and establish a republic of Jamaica, the process will not be strengthening the privileges and power of the people if they do not have the power to elect an executive president.

“Give the Jamaican people an executive president,” urged Golding, who is the son of former Jamaican prime minister, Bruce Golding. “Give the Jamaican people a head of state who is not obligated to the political party, though he may be a member of it, but can say to that political party in those difficult times, that I have an obligation to the people of Jamaica.”

Golding, who is renowned for his strong Pan-African views, made his recommendation while giving the keynote address at the People’s National Party (PNP) Region Six Women’s Movement’s Amy Ashwood Garvey Awards ceremony in Montego Bay this past Saturday night.

According to Golding, the country should not continue with outdated systems and practices in choosing a head of state. Instead, he wants the current process of constitutional reform to empower the people to choose who they want to lead them.

“We are intelligent people, and there is plenty of space on the ballot, wherein we can vote for our MP (member of parliament) and we can vote for our president. We are old enough now, we are wise enough now,” said Golding.

The UNIA boss said that by suggesting that a president must be chosen by an agreement between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition is simply saying that the head of state is to be elected by 3,000 thousand delegates of one party and by the 4,000 thousand delegates of the other party.

“It’s the same [colonial] system and we must help the people articulate better, what they have been able to demonstrate since 1944,” said Golding, “Anything else besides Jamaicans having the power to choose an executive president would be a repeat of shifting control of the people from the British monarch to that of the monarchy of the country’s political parties.”

“And if we do that under the same design of the colonial masters who were concerned with us not having full power, then we are only replacing one monarch with another,” continued Golding.

“What I have been hearing them (the Constitution Reform Committee) saying lately does not put power in the hands of the people. And if we are honest about the political culture in this country, we would know that every voting Jamaican wants a say in who leads this country,” added Golding, “It is not fair to the people of Jamaica who will place a vote for their MP as a proxy vote for who they want to be prime minister. You are robbing them of the suffrage that their ancestors shed blood, sweat, and tears to win for them.”