Editorial | Move on term limits

It may not be a decisive factor in the coming general election, but it is clear that Jamaican voters remain staunchly in favour of term limits for their leaders.

So, if they respect the will of the people, as they claim to do, the island’s major political parties must stop paying lip service to the issue and place it among the urgent matters to be attended to in constitutional reform after the poll that is constitutionally due by September.

In this regard, the party leaders, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), and Mark Golding of the People’s National Party (PNP), ought to give solemn, bankable pledges that whichever one leads the government after the vote will move immediately on the matter.

Nearly a decade ago, on the eve of the general election of February 2016, Dr Holness promised that legislation for a fixed–term prime ministership would be tabled within his administration’s first 100 days if he won. He did win. It has not happened.

Whatever may have distracted Dr Holness from that mission, the finding of the latest Don Anderson survey for the RJRGLEANER Communications Group, published this week, makes it clear that the matter has gone nowhere. The poll of 1,033 adult Jamaicans, conducted between May 18 and June 7, has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent.

Nearly eight in 10 (78 per cent) of voting-age Jamaicans say that prime ministers should be subject to term limits. That figure was marginally higher than the 77.1 per cent who held the same view in a September 2023 poll.

Although specific limits were not reported, support for term caps was nearly as strong (78 per cent) with respect to elected members of the national Parliament and local government councillors.

RECONFIRMS KEY SENTIMENT

Notably, and quite explicably, this sentiment was strongest among supporters of the PNP, although it ranged across political spectrum as well as age cohorts.

Among the people who are likely to vote PNP, 85 per cent said prime ministers should have a cap on their premiership. For JLP supporters, whose leader is seeking a third consecutive term, nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) back term limits.

The sentiment for capping the length of prime ministerial service was strongest in the 25-34 and 55-64 age groups – both with 83 per cent. The weakest support was among people over 65. And even then, it was a robust 63 per cent.

This data reconfirms a key sentiment that Jamaicans hold of their politics, political institutions, and of their leaders: they deeply distrust them. And they start with a presumption that they are corrupt. The longer political leaders remain in office, they believe, the worse they become.

Indeed, opinion surveys and academic analyses consistently show that upwards of eight in 10 Jamaicans believe it is a corrupt or highly corrupt country, and nearly half lack trust in critical institutions of governance, including the legislature.

In its 2023 survey on democracy in the Americas, Vanderbilt University’s LAPOP opinion laboratory found that 53 per cent of Jamaicans were in support of democracy as an abstract ideal. Though slightly up from two years earlier, that was a sharp decline from the 79 per cent in 2006.

Only 32 per cent said they trusted the leader of the political executive (prime minister) and 21 per cent trusted the legislature.

DEFINITIVE POSITION

While there was a three percentage point drop from 2019, fully half (50 per cent) of Jamaicans would tolerate a military coup if the coup was about taming corruption.

Many will claim that these notions are derived from experience.

Clearly, Jamaicans hanker for measures that they believe will enhance the quality of the country’s governance, including placing a tight muzzle on corruption. Term limits – which has in the past been coupled in debates with the right of voters to recall their representatives – is among the actions that Jamaicans overwhelmingly agree on.

In 2011, former Prime Minister Bruce Golding, Dr Holness’ predecessor as leader of the JLP, tabled a bill in Parliament to amend the Constitution to limit a prime minister to a maximum of two five-year terms. Given that the section of the Constitution that would have to be changed is not deeply entrenched, this would be relatively easy to accomplish, if the proposal had bipartisan support.

However, Mr Golding was forced to resign before the bill was debated. It has not been pursued since.

While the PNP has goaded Prime Minister Holness on his failure to follow through on the question of term limits, the party has not offered a definitive position on the issue, although it has hinted at support. It must now make its position clear.

The bottom line: Jamaicans know what they want, which is term limits. The political parties must put it irrevocably on the table.