“It's not true that life is one damn thing after another - it's the same damn thing over and over”. Edna St. Vincent Millay’s quip pretty much sums up Jamaican politics. For while the names and dates might change, political events here always seem to point to the same conclusions - the PNP continues to be incompetent, the JLP remains disorganized, and the NDM is still incoherent.

Despite gaining three massive mandates in a row the present government has done little to better most people’s lives. Few governments of a country at peace have performed more pitifully over the past decade. The economy has stagnated, the murder rate has almost doubled and the nation’s infrastructure continues to crumble.

Now it can be argued that Jamaica’s lack of growth is due to the fundamental restructuring our economy has undergone and that the increase in crime has been caused mainly by an influx of deportees, events over which the government can plausibly claim not to have full control. But what conceivable excuse can there be for not maintaining our roads in an even passable condition?

The lack of transparency in the awarding of road contracts understandably upsets many. But offensive as it may be to democratic ideals, political patronage has been a feature of Jamaican politics since even before independence. What truly upsets the public today is not so much that government cronies seem to get most of the work, but that they are apparently unable to build roads that stay in decent condition for more than three months. Is there a single stretch of asphalt between Port Antonio and Negril which is not pitted with potholes?

No government is perfect, and most people are prepared to accept a little dishonesty here and a bit of incompetence there. But no self-respecting electorate is going to stomach both at the same time and re-elect what they increasingly perceive to be a set of inept crooks. For all the fancy theoretical talk of our radio political pundits, the most important issue in the next election will probably be our disgraceful roads. It is hardly an accident that nearly every day there is a roadblock by a community protesting impassable roads. Personally every time I drive from Mandeville to Montego Bay – which are after all not remote villages but major population centres - the battering my body and Honda Civic take makes me angrily vow to do everything I can to help get this government voted out.

Until of course the next JLP civil war breaks out, which normally takes no more than two weeks. It is incredible really. If every member of the Labour party simply shut up and said absolutely nothing until the votes were counted they would probably win a sweeping mandate in the next election. For the majority of the Jamaican people are beyond a doubt completely fed up with the present government’s pathetic performance. But JLP members keep acting like crabs in a barrel and seem more interested in stopping each other from rising than in defeating the PNP.

By any standards of logic the recent violent confrontation between Pearnel Charles and Percy Broderick supporters is inexplicable. It’s not as if it came from out of the blue. Mark Wignall publicly warned about a possible clash between Charles and Broderick months ago. Surely the party leader should have settled any disagreements between them in private long before it came to actual blows. For this latest incident has confirmed once more the opinion of many that the JLP is merely a band of mutually hostile factions united not by principle or personality but by a lust for power.

Efficiency, orderliness and financial probity are not words that come readily to mind when one takes a hard objective look at the JLP executive. Frankly the perilous state of the finances of so many prominent labourites gives even those disgusted with the PNP pause. And if a party cannot stay united in opposition, what chance is there that its infighting members can be controlled when they get their hands on real authority? Who can trust people who can’t run a party to run a country?

Of course that is the same question people are asking about the NDM, which may be the most irrational political party of all. How can any sensible organization exist for over five years and yet be unable to make up its mind about what it stands for? To this day the NDM cannot tell the people exactly what constitutional reforms it would carry out if it came to power. Its own president admits people are mistaken in calling it a presidential party, yet can give no clear answer as to what specific changes in the system the NDM does want to make. Does he think his party can win over the electorate by saying “We’re not the PNP and we’re not the JLP so vote for us”?

The NDM reminds me of the old joke that “if you laid all the economists in the world end to end they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion”. Based on past performance an NDM government’s term of power would probably expire before it made its first policy decision.

The expectations of Jamaicans voters are now so low that any party demonstrating even the slightest pretense to competence would probably win in a landslide. But none of them seem willing or able to do so. A friend recently remarked that the current political situation reminded him of a race between three men with broken legs crawling around a track. Another likened it to a “fixed” three horse race where the jockeys are all “pulling up” their mounts and none of them want to win.

Yet lambast our political leaders as we will, they are in a real sense the best the country has to offer. Whether Patterson, Seaga and Golding may or may not be the finest leaders in Jamaica, but they are certainly the finest willing to stand for office.

Apart from the unknown quantity of Portia Simpson they are easily the most popular figures in their parties. And it’s not as if they are stupid. For in interviews and debates they all come across as highly intelligent men who could hold their own in any international gathering. Why then are they so ineffective at giving the electorate what they say they want?

Well, to quote Eugene Ionesco, ”I am an author because I want to ask           questions. If I had answers I'd be a politician.” But could it be that for all their grumbling the Jamaican people and our politicians are content with things as they are?

But could it be that for all their grumbling the Jamaican people and our politicians are content with things as they are?

As Winston Churchill might have put it, this country is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. changkob@hotmail.com