New PM, but is he any different ?

Tradition is not law. And we want to be governed by law, not mere tradition. The Golding party-first sequence of events has been overtaken by the rush of unpredictable and uncontrolled circumstances which have right-sequenced the appointments of prime minister and party leader as far as the Constitution is concerned. Almost everyone expects an early election, with Mr Holness capitalising on the euphoria attending his elevation to quickly consolidate his grip on the office and his party's retention of the Government.

If Prime Minister Andrew Holness is first a party man, and then only after that the leader of his country's Government, he is bound to be a failure in driving the significant changes which the country desperately needs, as the others before him have been. He should mark well that his immediate predecessor, who once turned his back on 'old-style', tribal politics, has been, in the main, defeated and driven out of office by putting party first, certainly in the Coke-Manatt affair, which, more than anything else, has brought down Mr Golding's promising prime ministership.

The vision of a better Jamaica is childishly simple: We want a peaceful, safe, prosperous, stable, and just country with a supportive social, economic, political and physical environment within which people can flourish in pursuit of their own happiness. And we want a prime minister and Government able to lead the way there.

Prime Minister Holness has no magical or messianic powers. His personal capacity will matter a great deal. But his leadership will be constrained by some critical factors which he did not create or can control. His greatness, or lack of it, will be determined by how well he manages these serious constraints.

The post-Emancipation history of this country, and more specifically the political history of this country since universal adult suffrage in 1944, has shaped modern Jamaica into what it is and is the tap root of our most fundamental and persistent problems. Effective governance will not take place without an understanding of the impediments of history and the will to defeat them. Any primacy of party over Government will, and must, lead to decisions inimical to the national interest and to destructive factional fights.

The biggest challenge

World conditions will have a profound impact upon our domestic affairs and will pose the biggest challenge of all. The buoyancy of earlier decades, which we blew while others grew, is not there now. While some are organising petty protests against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which has been invited in to rescue us from the consequences of our own political and economic recklessness, the Fund, in its September 2011 Global Financial Stability Report, has been warning that the world's financial system has grown even more unstable over the past few months, drifting back into the danger zone and putting at risk recovery from the most severe global recession in eight decades.

The governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, said after the central bank injected another £75 billion into the British economy, "this is the most serious financial crisis at least since the 1930s, if not ever." King told the BBC that the world economy, as a whole, is slowing down "much faster than people thought only a few months ago". In September also, stocks fell sharply after the US Federal Reserve indicated that the US economic slump could last for years more.

A government which can simply prevent the worst from happening here, as the Golding administration did, will have had some significant success, but may never be applauded for it.

Great capacity in building a strong, focused team in the Cabinet and in the public service will be necessary, as well as building cross-party collaboration on critical issues and getting the Parliament of the people's representatives to work as the Constitution intended. A great prime minister will be the conductor of the orchestra, who must, of necessity, turn his back to the crowd to do the job well.

Managing expectations in our political environment of search-and-destroy criticism and reckless promising is going to severely test the leadership and communication mettle of Prime Minister Holness and his administration.

Andrew Holness, the liberal arts scholar, is fond of pointing out, in response to his detractors, that he was born in 1972 and, therefore, is not to be regarded as part of the old political order. Not true. Not the part about the year of his birth. The part about not being part of the old - and destructive - political order.

As prime minister, he will either be the most significant leader of the old political order or the principal architect of its transformation into something new and different - and better. He cannot be that transformational leader as a captive of the JLP.

Biggest impediment

The formation of the modern political system of this country was accompanied by violence and corruption almost from the very start. The documentation is now extensive and readily available. I have written a lot about it in this space. The first commission of enquiry into political violence, the Hearne Commission, was held in 1949 when the PNP was only 11 and the JLP, six. The last commission of enquiry, in 2011, had its roots in garrison politics. In-between both, the destructive tribal politics of this country has been the biggest impediment to its development.

Mr Holness was born in the decade when garrison politics peaked and was consolidated. When he was only eight years old, his present constituency of West Central St Andrew had the highest level of political violence and the largest number of deaths during the long election campaign of 1980.

The people of inner-city West Central St Andrew are not poor and subjected to higher-than-average levels of violence because of some mysterious cause of history. Jamaica is not where we are today with the fourth-highest murder rate in the world, a low per-capita income and a mountain of debt by sheer accidents of history. The destructive tribal politics of this country has been the biggest impediment to its development.

The rich prospect and promise of the Five-Year Independence Development Plan, 1963-1968, was quickly derailed by acrimonious party politics in the Parliament and the diversion of energy into battles on the streets. The first state of emergency was declared over politically motivated violence in Western Kingston in 1966, a mere four years into Independence. The '60s produced growth without equity. The '70s attempted equity without growth. The following decades have been devoted to piecemeal patching of things 'gone bad a mawnin' in a negligible-growth economy with increasing levels of violence and lawlessness, disorder and hopelessness.

Prime Minister Holness should read that largely unrealised Independence Development Plan.

Historical injustices

The plan, taking as its point of departure the 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion, was rooted in the historical injustices meted out to most Jamaicans, and the failure of governance past to address the most fundamental needs of the people. Those historical injustices and unsatisfied fundamental needs are as alive today as then, and some have even been made worse, as we approach the 50th anniversary of Independence with a post-Independence child at the helm of Government.

Mr Holness has sat in Cabinet for four years and a bit. He is MP for one of the most challenging constituencies for poverty and violence, squandered human potential, and underdevelopment. He has been in politics for half his 39 years. He knows the problems. He knows the solutions. Whether he has the statesmanlike capacity of independence, will - and goodwill - to substantially transform the country he now leads is left to be seen.

Our new prime minister embarks today upon a journey which will confirm whether or not the loader man has been elevated to the driver's seat of the country's battered and rickety JEEP travelling the same old journey on the same pothole-ridden road.

Martin Henry is a communication specialist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and medhen@gmail.com.