EDITORIAL - The value of Mrs Blaine

People like Betty Ann Blaine are irritatingly good for democracies. They ignore, or are oblivious to the jeers and tend not to be constrained by conventional wisdom, and sometimes cause even those of us who initially snicker to question the validity of assumptions that are taken for granted.

And that is the essence of democracy: its ability not only to accommodate the questions of those with whom we may disagree, but to protect and defend their right to ask them. Their efforts lend to renewal, which is what Mrs Blaine suggests is her aim with the New Nation Coalition (NNC) that she launched on Wednesday.

It is not that Mrs Blaine has not tried before. Indeed, she is a serial activist. In the 1980s Mrs Blaine, a historian who was a columnist in this newspaper, was, in the Jamaican context, a forerunner of the public academic who are relatively common today. Early in the decade, she helped Antonnette Haughton launch their inevitably short-lived United People's Party. More recently, Mrs Blaine has been a radio talk-show host and advocate for children's welfare, through her organisation, Hear the Children's Cry.

Now, Mrs Blaine has bravely launched the NNC as a political party in a country where two brands, the People's National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), have had an effective duopoly on politics. Jamaica is littered with the bones and, in the case of the National Democratic Movement (NDM) that was founded by now Prime Minister Bruce Golding, the comatose shell of 'third' parties.

This, of course, is not to say that Mrs Blaine's party doesn't have a chance despite the seeming absence of support for it, except for the leader's claim of its existence. Current circumstances suggest that Jamaicans might be receptive to a new political organisation.

Indeed, a May survey for this newspaper indicated that support for the ruling JLP, in the face of the Government's mishandling of the Christopher Coke affair, had collapsed to 19 per cent, compared to the 38 per cent for the PNP, which had not prospered from the Government's misery. A more recent poll by the RJR Group essentially confirms the distrust Jamaicans have for, and lack of confidence in, the parties and their leaders.

New visionary leadership

So, a new visionary leadership and organisation willing to do the hard work could perhaps mine this opportunity. But Mrs Blaine will, at the same time, do well to remember the case of the NDM.

Leading up to its launch, 19 per cent of the Jamaican population indicated their willingness to support a third party. But support for the NDM fell away by the time the 2002 general election was called, and Mr Golding could not find the energy or the context to pursue his goal of renewal within that party. He eventually found his way back to the JLP.

Mrs Blaine says "the time is ripe for a new message, a new mission and new engagement". She didn't mention, though, the possibility of a hard slog beyond the next general election due in two years' time.

Whatever happens, she will have helped us to think about the state of our democracy.

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