A cynical friend describes the coming election as a choice between a potential Zimbabwe and a potential Argentina. For if the PNP wins we are facing 18 consecutive years of rule by a party which is already showing complete disdain for the public’s wishes. While a JLP triumph means handing the reins of government to a manifestly incompetent organization.

Now having witnessed how corrupt and arrogant 22 years of power have made Robert Mugabe, no liberal democrat could view a fourth consecutive PNP term with anything but concern. It’s not that P.J. Patterson has displayed any dictatorial tendencies. But the cliché about absolute power corrupting absolutely became a cliché because it is true. After all, Mugabe once vowed to make his enemies love him by loving them, but now clearly believes in power at any cost. Do we really want to take the chance of a similar transformation taking place here?

This administration already seems to think PNP rule is a permanent state of affairs and so it has no need to make itself accountable to the electorate. Despite the billions wasted in NetServ and the NHDC, not one official has had the decency to offer his resignation. And mere weeks after promising no new taxes before the next budget, a light bill “cess” was imposed.

Since the dictionary defines “cess” as “a tax, a levy”, the authors of this act obviously consider Jamaicans illiterate morons. And despite the outcry, the government only backtracked when big business raised a ruckus. For naturally no political party can afford to alienate the private sector completely. It is an axiom of politics everywhere that the party with the most corporate contributions usually wins the election.

Now if this government can display such brazen contempt in the run up to a closely contested election, imagine the utter lack of concern for public opinion that another 5 years of power would produce. Re-electing this administration would be tantamount to giving those who have filled their accounts with NetServ and NHDC money an award of merit for work well done.

Normally there would be almost no chance of this happening. But not even Labour diehards have any real confidence in the administrational abilities of an opposition shadow cabinet which might be uncharitably, but not necessarily inaccurately, described as a tired and befuddled old man surrounded by a bunch of clueless yes men. And many fear that a JLP administration might mismanage the country into Argentinean chaos.

Indeed the only reason the PNP has any chance of winning the next election is its organizational superiority. Even staunch Labourites in unguarded moments confess that the PNP executive is simply more intelligent on the whole. With all its faults the present administration has at least taken care of the nation’s basic organizational needs. The great fear is that under the JLP the country’s governmental structure will become what the labour party is now, namely a dysfunctional organization where decisions are made with seemingly no rhyme or reason and which cannot even be trusted to act in its own much less the people’s self-interest.

After all, this is a party with a 71 year old leader which has absolutely no clear plan of succession in place. If Edward Seaga was to drop dead tomorrow such would be the chaos in the party that its continuation would by no means be assured. Who knows if some infighting deputy ministers would not simply take their factions with them and start new entities? True this would be irrational, but no more irrational than many things the JLP has said and done over the past decade. I mean look at the mess it is now making of the Bruce Golding issue.

Frankly Mr. Seaga’s declaration a few years ago that no one else in the JLP was capable of leading the party but himself must be one of the most senseless statements ever made by a politician. For to admit that an organization you have run for 25 years contains no one that warrants your confidence is to say that either a) you have allowed only fools to enter or b) you have caused all competent persons to leave. Either way it is a confession of abject managerial failure.

None of this seems to faze Mr. Seaga however. And you have to wonder. Does he believe himself immortally immune to the ravages of illness and age? Or does he simply not care what happens to the JLP after he is gone and has in his mind said “Apres moi le deluge?”

All this leaves the Jamaican electorate in a quandary. And stuck as we are between a rock and a hard place, I hope for a close election where the opposition wins at least 25 seats. For governments with shaky majorities are less likely to do anything really stupid or venal. At the very least they have to listen to internal rebels. Without its massive parliamentary dominance for instance, the PNP could not have afforded to ignore the protestations of Danny Melville, Francis Tulloch and Easton Douglas.

Tight elections can produce instability, but surely after 40 years our democracy is mature enough to handle such a reality. At any rate this would in my view be a risk worth taking. Because giving a massive majority to either party would be courting disaster. The least bad option would probably be a small JLP majority, because at this point a change of government really would be best for the long term interests of Jamaican democracy. Yet I would prefer a small PNP win to a massive JLP victory. For a Labour landslide would be akin to handing complete control of the asylum to suspected lunatics. But then a big PNP victory would be like getting the mongooses stealing your chickens to guard the fowl coop.

In a perverse way Edward Seaga’s unpopularity may actually be right now a good thing for Jamaican democracy. For his leadership is really the only thing that might prevent a sweeping JLP victory. P.J. Patterson’s administration is probably as unpopular as Hugh Shearer’s in 1972, Michael Manley’s in 1980 and Seaga’s in 1989. But in all those cases the disenchanted electorate had an acceptable alternative. This time around for many it boils down to who do we hate the most, the PNP or Seaga? (As I write this on Thursday morning however both light and water are off and everyone in my complex is angrily vowing to vote out this government.)

In my estimation the Jamaican people have never chosen wrongly and have in every election elected the best party to lead the country. And now that neither the PNP or JLP seem fit to lead us, I hope they give neither a decisive majority. If bad government is the only choice, the wise thing to do is to give whoever wins as little power as possible. changkob@hotmail.com