Three of our five governors general have come from the political parties. The sixth is to come from a background in the Church in the person of Pastor Patrick Allen, president of the West Indies Union of Seventh-day Adventists.

What would Jamaicans have thought if the leadership of either political party had called a public relations press conference to defend an appointee for the office of governor general from its ranks? Thoughts of partisanship in the office of governor general would immediately be strengthened.

But this is precisely what the leadership of the West Indies Union of Seventh-day Adventists has done with their press conference last Friday.

We expect appointees to the office of head of state to be neutral private citizens, freed of partisan loyalties as a condition for elevation to the office as a symbol of the unified state. Dr Patrick Allen may well be a highly suitable candidate, but it could hardly be the business of a sectarian organisation to which he is attached, indeed which he now leads, to so declare.

Resign

Since he did not do so prior to the announcement of his appointment, as protocol and ordinary courtesy would suggest, and in fairness to those he now leads in another capacity and to the country, the governor general-designate should forthwith resign as leader of an organisation and revert to the status of private citizen.

Ties which may (even appear) to compromise neutrality should be cut and preferably cut in advance of the announcement. Ties would include political party affiliation, board directorships, and most definitely church leadership noting that ordination certainly in the case of the SDA church means a life-long, exclusive setting apart for Christian ministry as sole vocation.

Furthermore, the West Indies Union of Seventh-day Adventists, rather than publicly promoting their lingering leader, should, in preparation for his new role as the head of the secular Jamaican state, revoke his ministerial ordination which had set him apart for gospel ministry in the denomination as his exclusive vocation.

I am, etc.,

MARTIN HENRY

medhen@gmail.com