JLP Senator Abka Fitz-Henley rejects Mark Golding’s touting of ‘painful’ 1970s democratic socialist policies, saying Jamaica should not go back there

Government Senator Abka Fitz-Henley says Jamaica cannot afford to go back to the destructive and painful policies of the 1970s which have been publicly embraced by current PNP President Mark Golding.

Senator Fitz-Henley, who is Chairman of the JLP’s Communication Taskforce and State Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, was responding to comments by Golding at a PNP meeting in the Green Dale Division in St. Catherine.

Golding was quoted in the print media as saying the PNP, under his leadership, has embraced democratic socialism, the political philosophy championed by Prime Minister Michael Manley in the 1970s. Golding argued that there is renewed interest in the ideology.

Senator Fitz-Henley says: “Those of us who recall our history should remind the current generation that during the 1970s, the PNP’s embrace of this democratic socialist experiment, which Mark Golding alluded to led to severe economic decline, massive capital flight, severe food shortages, a major plunge in the Jamaican dollar and a massive increase in the cost of living by hundreds of per cent. It was an era where real income also plummeted by double digits.”

Senator Fitz-Henley continued: “Unemployment also increased in the 1970s by 27 per cent, while the lack of foreign exchange and materials shuttered factories. The policies created severe energy blackouts and caused supermarket shelves to be empty, leading to public rationing and rising tensions on the streets of Jamaica over food. Golding and the PNP should be told in no uncertain manner that Jamaica will not go back to a political philosophy which demolished the lives of thousands of Jamaicans and spawned the crisis, elements of which I just alluded to.”

Senator Fitz-Henley says it should also be remembered that the socio-economic philosophy of the PNP administration of the 1970s, which Golding has now embraced, caused a massive brain drain and a sustained spike in crime and violence. Fitz-Henley observed: “That Mark Golding, a political leader in 2026, would seek to publicly espouse such a philosophy that caused so many Jamaicans pain and created lasting damage to their lives and our economy tells us all we need to know. It tells us that Golding and the PNP cannot be trusted to manage Jamaica’s economy, an economy which this administration has been able to maintain with some semblance of stability and avoid cataclysmic socio-economic crisis, despite major external shocks, including those caused by COVID-19, wars in Europe and the Middle East and Hurricanes Beryl and Melissa.”

Senator Fitz-Henley concluded: “What Jamaica needs now is not democratic socialism. We need the continued economic stability and the environment for resurgence which have been carefully cultivated by the Holness administration, which has uppermost among its policies a focus on making better the lives of the Jamaican people across all sectors. Our policies also show particular sensitivity to not creating pain for the masses but cultivating a set of circumstances where the environment is created for the poor and dispossessed to prosper and bolster their standard of living.”