%202021_edited_edited.jpg)
PUBLISHED: Is Jamaican democracy dying by a thousand cuts?
- aquest
- 4 hours ago
- 4 min read
Have Your Say JAM| May 11, 2025
Jamaica remains, in form, a constitutional democracy.
Parliamentary elections are held regularly. Governments change. Courts issue judgments. The press, while pressured, retains a measure of freedom. The scaffolding of democracy still stands. But the soul of it? That’s another matter entirely.
One needn’t be a cynic to see that something vital is fading. Our democracy, once animated by active citizens and accountable institutions, now teeters on the edge of indifference. It’s not collapsing in a blaze. It’s been slowly haemorrhaging. A quiet, patient death by a thousand cuts.
The Cuts are Numerous and Deep.
Start with voter turnout. In the 2020 General Elections under Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), just over 37 per cent of registered voters turned up. That’s not apathy. That’s abandonment.
When nearly two-thirds of the electorate don’t vote, we must ask: Do they believe democracy matters? Or have they concluded that their participation makes no difference — that politicians promise and plunder in equal measure?
Corruption, too, has metastasised. High-profile scandals — from the Petrojam embarrassment to the Ruel Reid affair — have unfolded without meaningful jail time accountability. Investigations drag on, resignations are rare, and prosecutions are even rarer. Statutory declarations are delayed, dodged, or defied.
Some public officials behave as though transparency is a joke and the electorate a nuisance. Meanwhile, the leading political couples — both JLP pairs in Parliament, all benefiting from the state — remain above scrutiny while professing to champion “good governance.”
Organised crime has embedded itself into the very sinews of political life. Gangs aren’t just running extortion rackets; they’re manipulating votes. In some communities, they operate like shadow governments, providing “services” that the state has failed to deliver. In return, they demand loyalty: To themselves and often, to specific political parties. Where ballots are coerced and votes bought, democracy cannot thrive.
Then there’s the tribalism that continues to distort our politics. The PNP and JLP have so thoroughly colonised the political imagination that constructive opposition or consensus-building is seen as weakness or calculated obstruction. Our parliamentary debates are often more theatre than substance. The recent abolition of the independent Office of the Political Ombudsman—a non-partisan referee in this tribal contest—is another alarming step backwards. That it was done with little public outcry is itself a symptom of fatigue with democracy.
The government’s persistent and cynical postponement of local government elections—once delayed on at least five separate yearly occasions—is a deep and deliberate wound to our democracy. Local government is where democracy hits home: it’s where the everyday struggles of citizens—potholes, garbage collection, water supply—are supposed to be addressed by officials directly elected to serve them. By repeatedly deferring these elections, the government is not merely delaying a process; it is actively denying the people their most immediate and vital form of democratic representation.
Add to this the weakening of oversight institutions. The Integrity Commission is increasingly hamstrung, under-resourced, and disrespected—sometimes by the very entities it is investigating. The commission’s own difficulties notwithstanding, its public standing is being undermined by persistent attacks from powerful figures. Parliamentary oversight committees are treated as irritants by parliamentarians...or ignored outright. Civil society voices are often drowned out, defunded, or politely dismissed — especially when they challenge entrenched power.
And don’t forget the silent killer: declining trust in institutions. From political parties and parliament to the justice system and the police, faith is eroding. Citizens are not just disillusioned. Many have become fatalistic—convinced that the system is rigged, that democracy in Jamaica is a series of Sting/SumFest stage shows for international dollar earnings, not a genuine instrument of people power.
Yet let us be clear and fair. This is no reckless tirade. It is an evidence-based warning, not a partisan tantrum. And it acknowledges the record, as it must. Jamaica’s liberal democratic tradition runs deep—carefully cultivated and fiercely defended across generations. Full credit is due to former national leaders of both major parties: Sir Alexander Bustamante, Hugh Shearer, Edward Seaga, and Bruce Golding of the JLP; Norman Manley, Michael Manley, P.J. Patterson, and Portia Simpson Miller of the PNP. For all their flaws, each upheld and defended the constitutional institutions, democratic norms, and civil liberties that have made Jamaican democracy a model in the region.
What we are witnessing now under the current regime, however, is a slow haemorrhaging of that inheritance. It is not merely drift. It is demolition by delay, by evasion, by manipulation, and by unchecked concentration of power. If this trend continues, the legacy of those past leaders may become little more than a historical footnote to a retreat of democracy.
Democracy doesn’t need a dictator to die. It can rot from within. Unchecked corruption, public disengagement, organised crime, institutional decay, ‘billioneering’ capture, and political cowardice are just as lethal as jackboots and censorship.
Thankfully, we are not yet a failed democracy. But we are flirting with becoming a hollow one — where elections are held, but mean little; where institutions exist but are not trusted; where leaders govern but are not held to account; where the people speak but are not heard.
The future of Jamaica’s democracy rests not just on ballots cast every five years, but importantly on the strength of our institutions, the vigilance of our citizens, and the integrity of those who hold power. Without these, all the trappings of democracy will be nothing more than stage props in a play nobody believes.
So, is Jamaican democracy dying by a thousand cuts? If it isn’t yet dead, it is certainly bleeding out. And unless we — citizens, institutions, media and, yes, those in power — act decisively, we will soon be left with nothing but the corpse of a proud tradition, embalmed in excuses and buried under decades of squandered trust.
To Dr Holness and his loyalists: Beware. History does not forget, and democracy does not forgive.
by Dennis A. Minott, PhD.
May 11, 2025.
Comments