Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller sits beside her challenger for the presidency of the People's National Party, Dr Peter Phillips (foreground), in Parliament yesterday. Also pictured are opposition MPs Dr Omar Davies and Peter Bunting (top), the party's general secretary. Simpson Miller said little or nothing to Phillips during the sitting. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

People's National Party (PNP) presidential contender Dr Peter Phillips is casting blame on the political system for the crises facing the nation.

Speaking at a luncheon for St Andrew Rotarians, held at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston yesterday. The former national security minister who informally launched a bid to unseat the sitting party President Portia Simpson Miller on Sunday, said the failure of politics was largely responsible for the failure of the educational system and the country's burgeoning crime.

"Despite all the gains that have been made since 1938 and the gains since 1962 - which have been real - Jamaica is still fundamentally an unjust, unfair and unequal society," he told the audience.

Poverty ratio

According to Phillips, the political system has contributed significantly to what he estimates as a 45 per cent poverty ratio among the island's workforce and the continued underperformance of students from non-traditional secondary schools.

About 60 per cent of children leave non-traditional secondary schools without passing a single subject.

"It is these same young people who represent the failings of our educational system that become the main recruits for criminal gangs," he argued.

"This crisis that we face at its root represents the failure of our political system and indeed it is a blot on our nation that, as we enter into the 47th year of our Independence, we still have 60 per cent graduating without certification ..." Phillips added.

He said while these shortcomings show a failure of government policy, it also showed that political leadership has been lacking vision.

"It represents also the failure of the political system to be able to facilitate consensus building because our politics in reality has repelled as many as it has attracted. It is still viewed by many as being too violent, too confrontational, too steeped in tribalism, and unable to confront the major problems that face us," he said.