Prime Minister Bruce Golding and his counterpart, Portia Simpson Miller, have been dismissed by the National Democratic Movement (NDM) as credible persons around which to build a government of national unity.

The movement has also over-looked Finance Minister Audley Shaw and Opposition Spokesman on Finance Dr Omar Davies.

"They are the problem. They are the reason we are where we are," Michael Williams, the party's general secretary, told The Gleaner Monday.

In calling for a coalition move-ment Monday, the NDM said the country's problems "inherited from the past Government cannot be solved by the present admin-istration.

"The NDM is calling for the suspension of the Constitution for three years in order to facilitate this unity government," the NDM said.

The NDM general secretary said, "Prime Minister Golding has failed and admitted his failure, especially after he announced that he would be reviewing the tax package.

A total failure

"We don't believe that he knows what he is doing, and we don't believe that Mrs Simpson Miller and Omar Davies can do a better job either. And Audley Shaw is a failure - a total failure," the NDM said.

Williams told The Gleaner that Dr Herbert Thompson, president of the Northern Caribbean University (NCU), would be the best person to lead a government of national unity.

However, Thompson has said he is not interested.

"I want to be considered only as a Jamaican committed to the building of the nation. I want to be numbered among proud Jamaicans who feel that we must find ways to make ourselves one again, not only of the Caribbean, but of the world," Thompson said.

He added: "In spite of our problems, I feel that our political democracy is at a stage where its maturity, combined with the will of the leaders of our country, will have to see us through this."

Thompson told The Gleaner that he was not convinced that it was either realistic to call for the suspension of the Constitution or that there will be a government of national unity in Jamaica any time soon.

"Rather than a government of national unity, our people would be more likely to support a govern-ment that has the gumption to look across party lines to pick some people to fill certain slots," Thompson said.

Similarly, Claude Clarke, another of those whom the NDM has proposed to be part of a coalition movement, has warned against toying with the Constitution.

"One does not want to overturn our constitutional structure. It is unhealthy for one to do that, certainly in an arbitrary way," Clarke told The Gleaner.

He, however, noted that there are provisions within the Constitution for a government in office to "bring together good minds from different political persuasions and to persuade those good minds to join in a common cause".

But in warning against the move, Clarke said it could create a dictatorship.

Alternative action

"You always need to have an alternative action for government to function effectively and operate in the interest of the people. If you create a structure that presumes to be a kind of a composite of what the country is, and that then has the force of authoritative power, you then centralise power, and that can become tyrannical," Clarke said.

Williams said the NDM was calling for patriotic Jamaicans to support the move, and has urged the prime minister "to find the courage to put the team together".

Clarke, however, stressed that the idea for a coalition government was "a short-term, reflexive response to a national crisis".

"What you need is leadership," he declared.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com

The NDM 20

Dr Herbert Thompson

Richard Byles

Delroy Chuck (JLP)

Peter Phillips (PNP)

Earl Delisser (NDM)

Ethlyn Norton-Coke

Sally Porteous (JLP)

Carolyn Gomes

Donna Duncan-Scott

Claude Clarke

Edward Seaga

Gordon 'Butch' Stewart

Douglas Orane

Greg Christie

Audrey Marks

Oliver Clarke

Mark Golding (PNP)

Andrew Holness (JLP)

Peter Townsend

Professor Trevor Munroe