As the Jamaica Labour Party holds its first annual conference today since regaining power after 18 years adrift, it has the opportunity to demonstrate some level of political maturity befitting its 64 years of national service.

In reality, after a mere two months in office, there is not enough to celebrate. Uncontrollable circumstances such as bad weather and market forces from abroad have had a serious impact. Thus, damaged roads across the nation and rising oil prices have posed severe challenges in a soaring cost of living and all that that entails.

Today's conference is sandwiched between these pressures and the impending Christmas season. As Prime Minister Bruce Golding has acknowledged, the traditional preoccupation with the Yuletide festivities has to be avoided, hence the short campaign, which officially starts with tomorrow's nomination day.

The more pertinent point is whether the conference will focus political activity on the long-delayed local government election scheduled for December 5. The challenge in this context is to make municipal governance in the parishes the main concern. The matter of local government reform has been talked about since the 1990s with only notional changes achieved - as in the establishment of the Portmore Municipality - but with no real devolution of autonomy or adequate allocation of financial resources to make it happen.

It will be instructive to see whether today's proceedings devote sufficient attention to such parish matters while the top leadership of the party still grapples with the demands of administrative transition. Chances are that the narrow margin between the parties at the parliamentary level dictates the primary concerns. Pending challenges in the courts make the situation tentative and unsettling.This mood is exacerbated by intimations of corruption in the previous PNP administration involving the handling of a gift of light bulbs from Cuba, and lately, a resurrection of the infamous Trafigura affair. These are divisive topics that will raise the political temperature to the exclusion of local government concerns.

The pity of such posturing is that more fruitful prospects are under consideration in areas such as education. We have become aware of promising areas of administrative action framing an innovative parenting policy in the education sector to be implemented by legislation. This should have the effect of involving parents more closely in the education of their children. Such an initiative is surely an appropriate area of concern at parish and community level.

Even as a national initiative by the Ministry of Education, the potential impact at parish level is obvious from the fact that community groups such as parent-teachers' associations must be involved.

As a gathering of the party faithful, it would be fanciful to expect that sentiment at today's annual conference would be other than primarily partisan. But, it would be useful for the party leader now Prime Minister to remind them of his inaugural invitation to inclusiveness. That notion may be dissipated in the heat of parliamentary contention; but good leadership includes the ability to strive for compromise, bearing in mind that the crises of crime and other social ills demand bipartisan resolution.

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