Anger over Prime Minister Bruce Golding's handling of police operations last week against a suspected drug lord that left 73 people dead led Jamaica's Parliament to introduce a no-confidence measure Tuesday that could cost the beleaguered leader his job.
The weeklong police and military search for alleged drug lord Christopher "Dudus" Coke, which also saw 700 people detained, had drawn widespread criticism and calls for Golding's resignation, including from longtime rival and former Prime Minister Edward Seaga.
The no-confidence and censure vote also focused attention on a long-standing practice of politicians cozying up to neighborhood "dons," the often-violent and Mafioso-like ward leaders of whom drug- and gun-trafficking suspect Coke is the most powerful.
The failure of the sweeps to capture Coke, a 41-year-old neighborhood leader from the Tivoli Gardens slum who is wanted in New York federal court on drug and arms smuggling charges, only made matters worse for Golding.
Before the no-confidence vote, Golding said he would push to pass six crime bills and promised to maintain pressure on criminal gangs, saying the operations last week were "the beginning of a concerted effort to dismantle an aggressive criminal network.... We will target criminal gangs wherever they exist, irrespective of their political alliances."
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