A suh di ting set!

https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/are-there-honest-politicians/

For the last 60+ years, Jamaica's politiricks has been hijacked by a consortium made up of the corporate elite, a corporately supported subservient media elite and a corporately supported corrupt political elite which leaves Jamaicans with a choice between a corrupt JLP and a corrupt PNP. Realizing this, most Jamaicans passively opt out of the political process which maintains the status quo leaving the political field to loyal party hacks and party thugs feeding on the political trough. It is practically impossible to break this stranglehold on the political system because the corporate elite will not fund the start-up of any other political group as the corporate elite is quite happy with the obedience of the PNP/JLP gangs.

The media elites, in subservience to their corporate elites will not give equal or positive media coverage to any new political movement. Although most of us Jamaicans do not support the JLP or the PNP, we are stuck with them because we have no realistic alternative to vote for. It takes money to start a political party, to build it and to keep it going. The Jamaican expects to receive largess from the political party that they support as this is how they are trained by the PNP/JLP. By and large, the ordinary Jamaican does not financially support the political party they support. The United Independents' Congress (UIC) found it extremely expensive and had great difficulty to register as a political party without corporate financial support. Now, the UIC, is the only registered political party in Jamaica that receives no corporate support. The UIC relies on ordinary Jamaicans to support the party so the UIC remains broke, marginalized, unable to recruit members and unable to finance a proper election campaign. Even the few people the UIC has recruited do not financially support the UIC in any meaningful way leaving the party on the margins. Seeing the situation, although there are many groups out there agitating for change such as the Advocates Network and the Peoples Anti Corruption Movement, they all remain on the margins, doing small sporadic protests here and there but unable to form political parties as they have no money and Jamaicans will not give these embryonic groups any money. Jamaicans will give money to their churches but because politics has such a bad reputation in Jamaica (a reputation caused and earned by the JLP/PNP), ANYONE in politics is not trusted. That is why I find it strange when people of integrity, like the author, who mean well and want to try to improve Jamaica join the JLP or the PNP. When you jump in a river of corruption, you get carried along or you drown. Politics in Jamaica is a dirty, dishonest business which relies on fooling the people you represent all of the time that you represent them when in reality the politicians represent the party which in turn represents the corporate elite. Jamaicans do not realize that who pays the piper calls the tune. Until ordinary Jamaicans decide that they want a change to the status quo and begin to start and fund alternative political parties, nothing will change. Without the transparency of campaign finance reform, Jamaicans don't seem to realize that the corporate elite funds the JLP/PNP and can manipulate them by threatening to fund one over the other if they do not toe the line established by the corporate elite. This leads to a situation where people in both parties lie by omission. They do not tell the Jamaican people who funds them and who they are beholden to. By this standard alone, they are all liars and corrupt. A suh di ting set!

Raymond D. Grant