Robert Buddan, Contibutor

I supported Portia Simpson Miller in both 2006 and 2008, for the leadership of the People's National Party (PNP), for three main reasons. She was the popular choice among Jamaicans and, therefore, was the democratic choice for me.

She had a philosophy to put people first above party, elections, constituency or personal ambition, and to do so through a communitarian-partnership model of politics.

Third, she read the emerging world economic crisis correctly, especially from 2007. She saw that the world economy was heading towards a crisis and her priority was how to protect the most vulnerable, share the burden, balance fiscal against human priorities, and use our local talent and indigenous resources to create a new basis for sustainable development. These became central to the just-released Progressive Agenda of her party.

I support Andrew Holness for the leadership of the Jamaica Labour Party for the time being because he is the democratic choice among Jamaicans. But I would like to see his character as national leader and the people he surrounds himself with. They must not steal power from the grass-roots people who put their trust in him, as I believe Bruce Golding too compromisingly allowed those around him to.

I would also like to hear much more from him about his philosophy and political model for putting the interest of Jamaicans first. He should tell us how he intends to break with the politics of the past four years. He should tell us how he reads the current world economy and how he intends to position Jamaica in it. He should, in other words, produce his party's own version of a progressive agenda. Circumstances now demonstrate how important it had always been for the JLP to produce its own.

Philosophy matters

We need to know the leadership's philosophy. We can look up their age easily, but philosophy matters independently. It tells us what one's priorities are. For example, Cuba is also suffering from the world recession. It suffered three destructive hurricanes in one season in 2009, on top of the recession and the cruel United States economic embargo. Despite all of this, the United Nations Children's Fund reported that throughout this, Cuba was the only Latin American and Caribbean country that did not have a single child suffering from severe malnutrition. Cuba has its priorities. That comes out of a philosophy to protect people first and protect people from the worst. Though ageing, Cuba's leaders have a philosophy centring on the country's youth.

The world situation matters. We need to read it, anticipate it and prepare for the worst, even as we hope for the best. The economic recession has hurt everyone badly. But it cannot explain everything. The World Bank reported in April 2011 that Jamaica was one of only three countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that did not grow in 2010. One of the others was Haiti. We know why. Haiti suffered a massive earthquake in January 2010, on top of all its other problems. But why did Jamaica do so badly as to perform among the worst in the region over the past four years? Probably we need a new model and philosophy about economic life too.

The international situation

It has been of much local interest to know who will be the new JLP leader and prime minister. But that new leadership will have to do things very differently if Jamaica is to fare any better. It cannot be the same old party or power structure.

That same old structure will not be able to do much about our situation if what we are hearing about the international economy turns out to be true. A report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) of the United Nations and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the rich G-20 industrialised countries, is cause to worry. It says that 20 million people lost their jobs in the 2007-8 recession and predicts that another 20 million will lose their jobs in a second round of recession by the end of 2012. Youth unemployment is rising fastest. The report urged countries to create jobs. The PNP's economic emergency job-creating programme (JEEP) comes at a good time. The JLP leadership must tell us how they intend to create jobs.

Christine Lagarde, the new managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has said that the risks of recession have been growing and getting more dangerous than the threat of inflation. According to her, governments must act decisively and immediately to take their economies through a new stage of recovery. The new leadership of the JLP must tell us if it will renegotiate with the IMF to emphasise employment-creation projects that are neither just 'crash programmes' nor election-winning job and feel-good programmes.

The ILO-OECD report said, "We must act immediately and stimulate the process of job growth to offset the losses. Stabilisation of the employment level should be a priority in macroeconomic policy." That is not all. There are many people actually working but are still poor - the working poor - and inequality is increasing. This is true in Jamaica. It is true in those industrialised countries as well.

A report from the United States released in September said that poverty had increased there too. The number of poor people increased by 2.6 million in only the last 12 months, almost the population of Jamaica. This is related to rising unemployment. Here's an interesting statistic. If you gathered all the unemployed persons in the United States, they would constitute the 68th-largest country in the world. Poverty has doubled in Jamaica in the last four years. How would the new JLP leadership reverse this dangerous trend?

Political fallout

Poverty is also related to falling median incomes. Falling incomes mean that the number of working poor is rising. It also means that more persons are falling downward out of the middle class or less people are able to rise up into the middle class. This is a recipe for political anger. A New York Times article of September 27 points to the global political fallout that is being witnessed as a result of the poor state of economies, growing joblessness and rising economic inequality. It has not just been in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya that there have been uprisings but in Britain, Greece, France, the United States, Israel and many countries where angry protesters attack what the NYT article correctly calls a crisis of legitimacy.

People feel abandoned by democracy. They feel that their system has been captured by the rich. They distrust their political class. They want more participation, equity, honesty, decentralisation and communitarian structures. In Japan, six prime ministers have stepped down in five years. In Germany, Europe's strongest economy, membership of the two major parties has declined dramatically. How would the new JLP leadership reverse these same trends in Jamaica?

Everyone is guessing about when elections are going to be called and who will win. But we must keep our eyes on the bigger picture, that is, the plans for effective governance and national development. Remember our Vision 20:30 plan for national development.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona, and was a contributor to the Progressive Agenda. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com [2] and Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm [3].