(Jamaica Observer) Prime Minister Golding’s agreement to a commission of enquiry into the Christopher “Dudus” Coke/Manatt, Phelps and Phillips affair signals an imminent change of leadership, political commentators say.
In a series of interviews with the Sunday Observer last week, the commentators who include attorney-at-law Dr Paul Ashley and Observer columnist, Mark Wignall, had differing views as to whether Golding would step down or call snap elections.
But either way, they say, the writing is on the wall.
In a brief statement to Parliament last week, Golding announced plans to set up the commission into the circumstances leading to the extradition of former Tivoli Gardens strongman, Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, and the subsequent controversy over the engagement of United States law firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. However, Dr Ashley said the commission would not necessarily unearth any new information and that snap elections would be a “master stroke” to make the enquiry, and all other questions go away, at least in the short run.
Ashley said Jamaica’s current situation is almost a mirror image of the country under Edward Seaga in the early 1980s when the three-year-old government became unpopular after introducing austere measures to the Jamaican economy, which had collapsed in the mid-to-late 1970’s.
In 1983, Seaga called snap elections and secured a second term on the back of the bloody Grenada revolution in which Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was killed.
“The Government has lost so much credibility already. The Prime Minister has lost so much credibility as well. Nobody listens to him anymore and with (the party’s annual) conference coming up, announcing a general election is the only thing he can do to get Labourites listening to him again,” Ashley said.
