Who Runs Jamaica?

Answered by Tracie Shortridge, Associate Writer
April 1, 2018

The running of any and all organizations and businesses are always defined by who sits in the highest chair of the company.

For resorts, for example, you have the General Managers, for banks you have the Branch Managers and the list goes on.

As it pertains to a country, the head of all countries is the Government.

Jamaica is no different from these others countries as we are governed, managed, controlled and led by the Government.

As the citizens of Jamaica live in a mixed economy where each Government obtains their role through the citizens voting in an election.

Jamaica is currently run by the Jamaica Labour Party with the President and Prime Minister of Jamaica in charge namely, the Honourable Andrew Holness, ON, MP.

The current Jamaica Labour Party was sworn into office with Mr. Holness as its leader on March 3, 2016.

This was due to the then governance of the People’s National Party (PNP) led by the Honourable Portia Simpson-Miller losing to Mr. Holness in a General Election.

This loss was strongly felt by the PNP as they had been running the country for decades before.

With Jamaica’s Head of State being Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen of Jamaica, the Prime Minister was sworn into office by the Governor General of Jamaica who reports directly to and works directly for the Queen.

The Queen however has limited monarchy over the running of the country.

With this fact, once sworn into office, the Prime Minister, Mr. Holness, immediately commences the running of the country.

But, since he cannot physically single-handedly do so as running no country is a one-man job, he selects his cabinet of leaders from the JLP to be his support team in Parliament.

In order to select his cabinet, he now has to consider the 3 arms of Government namely, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary.

How is that broken down you may ask? Well, let me break it down for you.

Under the Executive arm we have the Cabinet which is covered by the Prime Minister himself as well as 11 other Ministers. Within the Executive arm, the Cabinet is responsible for guiding Government policies.

Under the Legislative arm we have the Parliament which is covered by elected officers who cover 63 constituencies across the country.

These elected officers are chosen by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposing Party (PNP).

They are responsible for amending existing and enacting new laws as well as controlling the Government’s finances and guiding fiscal policies.

And finally, under the Judiciary arm, we have the legal system compiling of the Privy Council, the Caribbean Court of Justice, the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court of Jamaica, the Resident Magistrates Court as well as special courts such as Traffic, Family and Civil Courts.

All these arms however work together like a perfectly architecture web as they are all linked together and work toward the overall prosperity, growth and development of the country.

Overall, to answer your question, the running of the country of Jamaica starts with the people and ends with the Government.

I hope this helps.

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