Peter Espeut | Dual citizenship and prestidigitation

As a teenager I fancied myself as a magician and a conjurer. I got a hold of a few books like Scarne’s Magic Tricks and Magic Tricks You Can Do, and my parents bought me a “Magic Box”, and soon my family and friends were bored to death with my card tricks and other stunts.

The secret behind making cards appear and disappear is deception – sleight of hand (the big word for it is prestidigitation). The attention of the onlookers is distracted by your patter and the movement of one hand, while the legerdemain is performed by the other hand or by some other means. I was never able to fool the careful observer, and as a result I became a careful observer myself.

This whole business of the dual citizenship of Mark Golding is intended as a big distraction while legerdemain takes place elsewhere. Jamaica’s present constitution permits Jamaicans who also hold citizenship in countries where the British monarch is head of state, to stand for elected office, because presently, Jamaica’s head of state is the same British monarch.

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and their acolytes in the media know this very well. They know that Jamaican politicians who are dual citizens of Britain, Canada and Australia serve quite legitimately, while those who are dual citizens of countries like the USA, France and Lebanon – which have different heads of state – are barred by the present constitution from seeking elected office in Jamaica.

And yet I have heard strident demands for Mark Golding – born and schooled in Jamaica (he attended Campion College) – to resign as leader of the Opposition and as a member of parliament because he inherited British citizenship from his father, and holds a British passport.

There have also been vociferous demands that Mr Golding renounce his British citizenship immediately! Or step down immediately! In the face of almost certain defeat at the next general election – so the opinion polls indicate – the JLP has become desperate! It is actually quite pathetic!

DRAMATIC EFFORTS

Everyone sees it, and would laugh at the JLP’s last-ditch dramatic efforts at political one-upmanship, if it weren’t so tragic.

When Jamaica becomes a Republic – and it will happen one day – the British monarch will no longer be our head of state, and all those politicians on both sides, who now quite legally serve with dual citizenship, must renounce the other and step down. Until that day, British Commonwealth dual citizens sit in Gordon House quite legally. (By the way, Gordon the parliamentarian also had a British father). On this matter, the antics of the JLP should be ignored, and we should keep our eyes open and carefully watch out for sleights of hand and prestidigitation (and ginnalship).

While the country is distracted by the JLP shenanigans around Golding’s British heritage (some are even going so low as to play the race card), the JLP are taking steps to amend our constitution to give almost absolute power to the head of the party in power. According to the proposed new constitution, no one can prevent the nominee of Jamaica’s prime minister from becoming president of Jamaica, and the vast majority of the constitutional changes can be implemented with a simple majority in both houses.

This week while we were distracted, the JLP amended Section 61 of the Constitution of Jamaica without consultation with the Opposition (never mind the public), and without their support. I see no reference to this change to our constitution in the Report of the Constitution Reform Committee (CRC) tabled this month in Gordon House.

In July 2023 while the CRC was holding its secret meetings, the JLP government rushed through in one day an amendment to Section 94 of the Jamaican Constitution without consultation with the Opposition, and without their support. What was the purpose of the CRC if not to propose and think through constitutional amendments, and achieve national consensus? Or was this more legerdemain?

Give this JLP government the power to appoint a partisan president, and to change the constitution without consultation, and they will do it. They have amended the constitution without consultation twice in quick succession over the last year, flying in the face of public criticism; so we can look for them to do it again. Clearly they are not worried that the present opposition will return to power and do the same to their disadvantage. Pay close attention to events over the next year!

UNWISE

Mark Golding was unwise not to immediately and openly declare his dual citizenship when asked; he is on solid legal grounds and had nothing to fear; but he had everything to lose by obfuscation. The People’s National Party (PNP) still give us little to attract our votes; they seem content to bide their time as the JLP commits political suicide with high-handed demagoguery and a series of unforced errors.

If the PNP forms the next government, I have absolutely no idea what they would seek to do while in office. Will they take the Patterson Report on Education Transformation seriously? Will they put the local construction sector on the same footing as the Chinese-government-owned construction interests? Will they reverse the ill-conceived Bernard Lodge township which will negate thousands of acres of A-class agricultural land? Will they make public recreational green space of the Kingston Racecourse, and renew the surrounding urban area, or will they demolish Allman Town, Woodford Park and Kingston Gardens and convert it all into the government oval? Will they expand the boundaries of the Cockpit Country Protected Area to where it should have been in the first place, or will they turn over our national biodiversity reservoir to the foreign mining sector? We simply don’t know.

I have confidence in the basic good sense of the Jamaican people who will see off this fatally flawed attempt at constitutional reform – really a power grab – and discredit those who have been bold-faced enough to propose it and to support it. But I remain uncomfortable with the silence of the PNP at a time when they need to be most vocal in putting themselves forward.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com