It has been announced that the number of parliamentarians are to be increased from 60 to 63. Why? When the man in the street is asked, those who support the move seem to feel that this is the answer to the poor representation they are getting. Well, if Einstein were here, he would say that to use additional poor representation to solve the problem of poor representation is insanity. And why is the representation so unsatisfactory?
Ever since we started governing ourselves, politicians embarked on a process of political 'deboning' and 'debraining' of the citizenry, thus depriving them of the ability to stand on their two feet and to think for themselves. Everybody was to come to them for everything.
One way of ensuring that this culture of dependency took root was to institute a 'womb to tomb' breastfeeding policy. To make this work, huge amounts of 'pork' was added to every project, government departments that had a welfare component were overruled and undermined by politicians who continually interfered with the work of civil servants.
Government agencies were used as a sponge for unskilled supporters. Elected representatives were then placed in positions for which most of them lacked the technical competency to perform. This laid the foundation for poor representation and jaundiced development.
Why so many parliamentarians?
Why does a country of 2.7 million need so many parliamentary representatives? The 'mother country', from which so many laws and conventions are borrowed, has nearly 60 million citizens and the ratio of MP to citizen is about 1:250,000. In the US, with 300 million, the ratio is 1:690,000. In Jamaica, it is 1:45,000. And as if this were not enough, we have about 240 councillors to 'help' the MPs.
Last Sunday, I picked up a distraught mother struggling with an injured son in front of the Central Police Station and dropped them off at the gate of the Kingston Public Hospital on my way to Half-Way Tree. That journey from Central to Half-Way Tree took nine minutes. I now realise that in that short time I passed through the constituencies of five parliamentarians - and probably twice as many councillors. This would be laughable if it were not costing us so much. Are the needs of the citizens in these five constituencies so different and unique that it demands so many persons to represent them? And how has this 'over-representation' improved the lives and livelihood of these residents over the last, say, 30 years?
Meaningful representation
We currently limit ourselves to what could be described as representation by population. But I think we should also consider representation by area so that meaningful representation can be given to persons in remote areas, since the current philosophy is that each person's vote should carry the same weight. We do not need more than 35 parliamentary repre-sentatives. It is the perennial breastfeeding which must be continued if the same style of 'control' politics is still to be practised.
If, as the director of elections claims, he is simply adhering to the law which says there should be no more than 25,000 persons on the voters list for any constituency, then all that needs to be done to free him from any breach is to increase the number of electors to, say, 40,000.
Regrettably, this exercise is virtually a done deal and nobody has addressed the really important issue: that of political representation. What should the citizenry expect of these representatives? Are contemporary notions of authorisation and accountability adequate? What is the role of the citizen in this process. Do citizens know how to interact with their government?
We have too many constituencies. But, more important, we need to update contemporary understandings of political representation in a democratic society.
I am, etc.,
GLENN TUCKER
Stony Hill
Kingston 9