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Is it just me or an inordinate amount of politicians from both sides of the political divide are being charged, implicated, investigated or generally just "mixed up" in various forms of criminality, ethical or moral breaches or other unsavory behaviour.
With a population of three million to choose from is it that our political parties have not enough options at their disposal to avoid people of questionable repute?
If one is to assume that our two major political parties are each going to field a candidate in each of the 63 constituencies that amounts to 126 potential candidates. in the past three years there has been approximately 37 alleged incidents of some sort of financial. criminal or moral impropriety among our potential leaders with the latest being a sitting JLP MP (arrested for tax evasion) and a PNP aspirant(arrested for fraud). That amounts to a whopping 30% of our two slates. If we were to assume that our party candidates represent a microcosm of our society then it would be reasonable to conclude that some one million people in our country today would be similarly "mixed up". Fortunately, I dont believe that to be the case as I believe that the overwhelming majority of Jamaicans are decent law abiding and morally upright people. It then begs the question Does poitics and our political parties attract people of questionable moral standards or Does our political system corrupt good people that enter it? Which comes first. the chicken or the egg?
Many will say that politicians are under greater scrutiny than the general population and that too is true. Others will say that the #s quoted for improper behavior include politicians no longer active and some whonever actually represented, that too is true, but can we really be comfortable with a system that needs to rely on these types of qualifiers?
As always however. I say the best is yet to come. walk good Jamaica.
With a population of three million to choose from is it that our political parties have not enough options at their disposal to avoid people of questionable repute?
If one is to assume that our two major political parties are each going to field a candidate in each of the 63 constituencies that amounts to 126 potential candidates. in the past three years there has been approximately 37 alleged incidents of some sort of financial. criminal or moral impropriety among our potential leaders with the latest being a sitting JLP MP (arrested for tax evasion) and a PNP aspirant(arrested for fraud). That amounts to a whopping 30% of our two slates. If we were to assume that our party candidates represent a microcosm of our society then it would be reasonable to conclude that some one million people in our country today would be similarly "mixed up". Fortunately, I dont believe that to be the case as I believe that the overwhelming majority of Jamaicans are decent law abiding and morally upright people. It then begs the question Does poitics and our political parties attract people of questionable moral standards or Does our political system corrupt good people that enter it? Which comes first. the chicken or the egg?
Many will say that politicians are under greater scrutiny than the general population and that too is true. Others will say that the #s quoted for improper behavior include politicians no longer active and some whonever actually represented, that too is true, but can we really be comfortable with a system that needs to rely on these types of qualifiers?
As always however. I say the best is yet to come. walk good Jamaica.
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