Martin Henry, Contributor

Today, the election trumpet will sound from the geographic centre of the island for all to hear everywhere.  But the hype has gone flat. Everyone now knows the date - post-Christmas, pre-New Year, leaving a very narrow choice of dates which is neither here nor there unless the prime minister chooses to go the unprecedented route of calling it for a public holiday or a worship day, as he has gone the unprecedented route of giving the date for the announcement of the date.

The window of dates may narrow even further if the birthday of a major opponent is to be avoided. I am hearing on media that December 28 is the birthday of Dr Peter Phillips, the campaign director for the Opposition People's National Party (PNP). When Hugh Shearer called the 1972 election for the odd date of February 29, the birthday of Edna Manley, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) lost it. But enough of omens, although Portia Simpson Miller relied heavily on 'Phinn-ished' prophetic advice for the 2007 election which she lost. now 66, if she loses this one, she is finished as leader of the PNP up to the following general election and in her personal bid to return to Jamaica House.

Central Manchester for the blowing of the abeng is highly significant. The seat will be contested for the ruling party by Danville 'Mr Integrity' Walker, who has held dual citizenship up until very recently and paid for it in having to quit as director of elections. Mr Clean will be running against the shrewd strategist and now general secretary for the PNP, Peter Bunting, who has unseated a former prime minister, Hugh Shearer, in SE Clarendon in 1992 and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat as a latecomer in Central Manchester in 2007.

And just what is Prime Minister Holness intending to signal by his choice of Central Manchester for announcing the date of the election? He journeys to Mandeville with the odour of Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP) hanging about his Government and without Mike Henry in the Cabinet, Patrick Wong at the NWA, or Alwin Hales at his post as permanent secretary in the Ministry of Transport and Works - all casualties of the JDIP fallout.

In the intense media scrutiny of JDIP, I haven't heard anybody asking if Audley 'Man A Yaad' Shaw, the minister of finance, has been honouring the commitment he gave to Parliament and the country for an increasing percentage of the special consumption tax on gasolene, starting at 20 per cent, to be channelled into the Road Maintenance Fund. For the first time in the country's history, we would have had a captive fund for road maintenance, but the minister has already admitted previous failure to honour the undertaking given. On this day of posturing and promises in integrity territory, Man A Yaad will be a key speaker as one of the four JLP candidates in the parish and the only one now holding a seat in the Parliament.

Political slush fund?

The front-page story of the Observer last Tuesday was headlined 'Review CDF: New candidates call for better management of fund'. None of them wanted the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) scrapped. No sitting member of parliament wants it scrapped.

The day after the Observer story, a former employee of the Social Development Commission, an agency infamous for political manipulation, reeled off stories of the corrupting hand of MPs in the old Social and Economic Support Programme, which the CDF replaced, supposedly with improvements. One MP submitted an invoice for a vehicle, an item which was not permitted under the SESP. When payment was denied, a series of invoices for allowed items appeared adding up to the price of the car! Payments were demanded for work not completed, not done, or not checked and certified. Arm-twisting phone calls came regularly from politicians.

Jamaica remains at 3.3 out of 10 on the Corruption Perception Index run annually by the Berlin-based Transparency International (TI). The country ranks 86th out of the 182 countries surveyed this year. Mr Integrity Walker, Cabinet material in the making, knows all about the potential for corruption at Customs. Many believe that the 200,000 waivers in the system not only rob the country of much-needed revenue and distort the market but represent enormous potential for corruption linked to campaign financing.

Funding and corruption

The Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) has joined several civil-society agencies in calling for declaration of party and, particularly, campaign financing by the political parties. The leader of the JLP, with Integrity Walker by his side, could take a pre-emptive step in this direction in Mandeville today. Let me just state again that all things considered, I am more in favour of the ECJ's initial proposal of disclosure to a trusted third party, itself, rather than full public disclosure with all its attendant risks.

The newly established non-profit anti-corruption company National Integrity Action Limited will be hosting one of a series of launch events this Friday, International Anti-corruption Day, at the UWI.

Prime Minister Holness will be speaking, and Leader of the Opposition Portia Simpson Miller has been invited to address the forum as well. Mrs Simpson Miller has her strongest public standing as caring for the poor. International agencies like the World Bank, the United Nations Development Fund and TI have repeatedly pointed out that corruption hurts the poor most.

But it's not all bad news. I was delighted to read in the Sunday Observer last week that Citizens Association for Free an Fair Elections (CAFFE) fears redundancy! 'We're almost redundant, say election watchdogs: CAFFE, churches praise maturing of Jamaican polling process.' The ECJ, perhaps the single most significant example of bipartisan collaboration, has cleaned up the system.

Disturbingly, while the traditional urban garrisons have seriously calmed down in both political violence and voting irregularity, Central Manchester has been showing signs of increased cross-party hostilities in the last election and in the run-up to this one. Both sides have complained of violence against their people and their property. The PM and leader of one of the tribes must work hard today and ongoing to return Mandeville and Central Manchester to their traditional tranquility. And the ECJ should remind the candidates that the commission is standing by to disqualify them and nullify the election results.

Meaningful debates

Journalism Week went by last week. The media have no more important function than providing the critical information needed for citizens to intelligently exercise their political and civic duties in a democracy. In this regard, the media-sponsored Jamaica Debates Commission must be commended. After the usual point-scoring wrangling between the parties, the debates are now on.

Can I implore selected panellists not to get carried away with the economy and IMF, as important as these are, but to spare some probing questions for the social rehabilitation of Jamaica, the dismantling of the garrisons, improving education performance, crime reduction and improving law and order and public safety, improving the functioning of the legislature of the people's representatives and the operations and costs of the public service, reducing corruption, rights ... ? The debate participants must be relentlessly pushed beyond mouthing platitudes into presenting hard, clear plans and commitments.

The powerful Gleaner has launched a Fact Check feature to monitor the truthfulness of statements made by campaigning politicians. Fact Check should help to keep them on their toes and help voters to make informed judgements.

The prime minister/leader of the JLP has set himself up as an anti-corruption teller of painful truths. "If there are things wrong in our Government, we are not hiding it, because we don't stand for corruption," Holness told supporters in Alligator Pond, Manchester, while touring Wednesday last. "You have a leader who takes firm decisions when it comes to that, and that is what the Jamaican people want; it means, as your leader, that is what you will get, strong and decisive leadership."