A Bleak Furture Indeed

Hooray, Shahine Robinson is now the member of parliament for North East St. Ann! Big deal. What a farce.

For those who follow Jamaican politics, the constitution demands that persons seeking to become members of parliament, must have not sworn allegiance to any other country and I think that is how it should be. I also disagree with the privileges given under the Constitution to Commonwealth citizens, but that is an entirely different topic.

So back to the issue at hand. When the PNP which had been in power for 18 year and who considered it their right to be government and never opposition, lost the election in 2007, they grabbed at the dual citizenship straw citing the fact that several elected members of parliament on the Jamaica Labour Party side were US citizens. The hilarity of the matter is however that in their haste to grab power via the courts and through the back door, they forget to check if they too had persons similarly disqualified on their side. And they do. But that's also another matter and I have commented on it many times in previous blogs.

What is especially disgusting about the Shahine Robinson affair, is that instead of just being honest and allow a bi-election, she went to court claiming she was not an American citizen. Worse, when the courts ousted her she even had the nerve to appeal it and went back into Parliament and happily fought the suit brought by the PNP until they brought actual proof to show that she was indeed a citizen. Bill Clinton would have been proud to have her as an ally, for whereas most politicians are experienced and convincing liars, the barefaced ones are not that prevalent. Well we really don't have to go to the USA of A to find barefaced liars, for the late Michael Manley was the doyen of that genre. So he too would have been proud to have a Shahine on his side.

But Michael Manley died a long time ago and the JLP, seeing how disgusted Jamaicans had become with corruption and sleaze, did promise when they were campaigning, to bring back integrity and decently to politics.Well if decency and integrity in politics is running someone like Shahine Robinson after her barefaced and disgraceful actions which have led the country to waste a $20 million that we can ill afford on an bi-election, then the future for this poor country looks bleak indeed.