Jamaica has mastered the art of political déjà vu: every five years we change the faces on campaign posters while the same busted pipes, cratered roads, and dimly lit lanes stare back at us. Voters are told to shrug—“All ah dem the same.” Nonsense. Track records, not tag lines, reveal who nurtured a district and who merely harvested votes.
Consider the simplest scorecard: running water, passable roads, reliable street-lighting, a basic clinic. If a constituency still flunks those four after three decades under a single banner, that banner didn’t just fade—it failed. Too many rural communities can trace their stagnation to an uninterrupted stretch of People’s National Party stewardship. Yet, the first person to feel the public’s wrath is the newcomer from the opposite side, who inherits the drought and the potholes with the swearing-in Bible.
This is more than bad optics; it is political amnesia. Residents line up to berate today’s Member of Parliament for unfinished work, forgetting that yesterday’s MP held the seat long enough to raise three generations on empty promises. You wouldn’t hire a contractor for 30 years, receive nothing but debris, then sue the next mason after nine months for the lack of marble countertops—yet that is exactly how our outrage is allocated.
Meanwhile, the current Administration—whether you adore or despise its green paraphernalia—is grinding through the unsexy, budget-guzzling fixes: pipe-laying across Clarendon Plains, asphalt resurfacing in “forgotten” backroads under the SPARK framework, health-centre rehabilitations that never trend on TikTok yet keep diabetics alive. Is the work complete? No. Is nine years enough to reverse three decades of drift? Also no. But metrics show forward motion—just inspect the water-production data from the National Water Commission or the latest farm-to-market road stats from the Ministry of Works.
Let’s be clear: no side holds a divine patent on competence. The Jamaica Labour Party must still answer for missteps, cost overruns, and delays. However, equating their current tenure with generational PNP neglect is intellectually bankrupt. Accountability means matching blame to the timeline, not to whoever happens to occupy Gordon House this afternoon.
So before we recycle the tired “same old story” cliché, do a forensic audit of your constituency’s timeline. Ask:
- Who sat in the seat longest?
- What capital projects were delivered—on record, not on rumour?
- How have key indicators (water access, road density, crime statistics, school-attendance rates) shifted during each MP’s watch?
If the answers sting, aim the criticism where it belongs. And if a fresh administration is finally pumping water into pipes that once echoed with air, assign credit accordingly—then keep the pressure on for phase two.
Jamaica’s growth will not be engineered by nostalgia or partisan reflex. It will be engineered by citizens capable of matching performance to incumbency, and retiring representatives who treat safe seats as private estates. The next election cycle is another chance to elevate results over rhetoric. Use it, or keep refilling that same dry barrel of excuses.
