When politicians fail to perform

Tuesday, September 15, 2015, Source

Anyone in Jamaica who is bristling at the current upheavals relating to political representation in the ruling People's National Party (PNP) and the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) should take note of the developments in Australia yesterday.

Prime Minister Mr Tony Abbott, who has earned the uncomplimentary title of a "polarising, gaffe-prone leader", was ousted in an internal party election as his conservative coalition Government, just two years in office, has been experiencing a plunge in public opinion polls.

Mr Abbott lost his job by 10 votes to his challenger, Mr Malcolm Turnbull, the former Liberal Party leader and communications minister, who secured 54 votes.

Mr Turnbull mounted his challenge in the belief that the Government could not win the next general election which, we are told, is due around September next year.

That is the nature of politics -- mercurial, unforgiving, and brutal.

Anyone engaged in politics, or who wishes to get involved, should accept the fact that failure to perform can result in personal disappointment, as the electorate is growing more discerning.

That, we submit, is what is happening in Jamaican politics today. In most of the cases, constituents are no longer prepared to sit and accept just any candidate thrust upon them by the leadership of the political parties, especially in instances when the candidates do not reside in the constituencies they are seeking to represent.

The latter point has been made for decades, and anyone who has been observing politics for any respectable length of time will admit that, in most instances, the candidates who live in their constituencies do a better job of representation than those who don't.

That is so because those representatives are affected by the same issues as their constituents. They, therefore, will not treat with scant regard the complaints of the people whose votes they depend on to remain in office.

There are, of course, a few parliamentarians who, despite not living in their constituencies, do a good enough job of representation, and they are rewarded with the people's trust at each election.

Those individuals are unlikely to be subjected to challenges, as we are seeing playing out now in the PNP and JLP.

Without more information we cannot state definitively that the members of parliament who have been challenged are not performing. What is obvious, though, is that there is great discord among their supporters in their constituencies.

That, like when the body aches, is a sign that something is wrong. The leadership of both parties, therefore, need to acknowledge that there are problems and, as such, should formulate solutions, instead of sticking their heads in the sand and stating that all is well.

Mr Abbott, to his credit, didn't adopt that silly posture. He asked his colleagues, after surviving an internal leadership challenge in February, to give him six months to improve his ruling party's standing in the polls.

Yesterday's vote in Canberra was the result of his failure to deliver.