Dawn Ritch, Contributor
I SUPPOSE it was inevitable that even though Jamaicans are being murdered at the rate of 25 a week, our two major political parties should find themselves deeply and uselessly divided.
In other countries the political parties would have developed a wonderful unity and an unshakeable focus. But not here. The governing party is headed by a lame duck, the Most Honourable P. J. Patterson. He is so in name and nature. Prior to the last General Election he said that if he won he would be resigning before his term of office was completed. So he made himself a lame duck administrator in name even before he won the election. Since then his style of governance is to refer every problem to a committee, so he's a lame duck by nature too.
JOCKEYING FOR POWER
Everyone both inside and out the People's National Party has therefore been avidly looking for a signal for when that departure is to be. Contenders for the prize of PNP president have been jockeying for power and position ever since the Most Honourable told the country he would resign, and really doing little other work besides. The front-runner according to received wisdom is Dr. Peter Phillips. He controls the party machinery, the security forces and is the minister responsible for electoral matters. This means that he's involved in the cutting of seats and the creation of new ones. Everybody has to respect the power of a man who can cut whole districts of voters from one person and give them to another. Respect or fear. Dr. Phillips, who therefore has political power and position, is also perceived within the PNP to enjoy the blessings of the Michael Manley legacy. But Dr. Phillips has not been able to inspire the Jamaican people, and his ratings in opinion polls have sunk to new lows. So he has not been able to unite the PNP behind his candidacy for the top job, despite his long hours and arduous fieldwork to that end.
Faced with Dr. Phillips' unelectability, the Most Honourable has had to cast about for another successor. His eyes are now fixed upon the Finance Minister Dr. Omar Davies. The Jamaican establishment, to my own considerable surprise of course, perceives him as a capable Minister of Finance and even prime ministerial. He has caused the steady decline of the Jamaican economy since 1995, and almost put it in the electric chair when he refused to stop the progress and by his own admission, let expenditure run in order to secure the party a fourth term. But not even that has endeared him to the comrades, who find him not only arrogant but hold him responsible for the debacle in the domestic financial sector, consequent business failures, and the forfeiture of Jamaican homes and properties. The PNP therefore finds itself unable to unite behind his candidacy either. This leaves the Most Honourable with his anathema, Portia Simpson Miller currently Minister of Local Government and Sport and queen of the hearts of the Jamaican people. He cannot forget that she challenged him for the PNP presidency in 1992.
Kept out socially by the Drumblair Set, the Most Honourable cannot resign himself to the idea that she might indeed be more socially acceptable than he. And the comrades who think themselves the standard bearers of the Michael Manley legacy also find that idea intolerable. Many in the PNP think the legacy means only a brown man from an upper middle-class background should lead the party. Or a black man with a professional qualification and an affected way of speaking. There's no place, according to these interpreters, for a black woman who got a first degree late in life, and speaks in natural Jamaican. They are all trying hard to forget that in the 1992 presidential election Manley gave his support unwaveringly to Portia. They also conveniently overlook the fact that Patterson was let go by Michael when the former was Minister of Finance. That's why he vowed, "I will return." But who could have thought it would be as Prime Minister?
Now faced with an apparently irreconcilable three-way split in his party, the Most Honourable is sending public signals not to expect his early retirement. He's inaugurated a new honour, and he'll be there to present it personally next year, he said. There is no end to the medals left to be struck, I need only add.
POLITICAL REALITY
So don't look for Patterson's retirement until eight months before the next General Election, which is not due until 2007. The simple political reality is that P.J. can't go as long as his party remains so deeply divided on who must succeed him, and the majority in the party therefore apparently so determined to select Portia. In all this it should be noted that Mrs. Simpson Miller is conspicuous not only for her national popularity and devotion to duty and accountability, but for a noted absence of overt campaigning among the party faithful. I'm betting that when this mother dog gets to her feet, all the little pups who have been suckling at her teets will tumble away and run happily behind her. She is in no rush. Nor is Mr. Patterson.
There are only two people who can change the political status quo in the country. Either she, because she gets up and takes the presidency of the PNP. Or Edward Seaga because he resigns as leader of the JLP. I don't think that Bruce Golding will challenge Seaga on the conference floor of the JLP in November. Nor do I think Seaga will resign. Whoever becomes the next leader of the JLP will have to beat him on the conference floor.
This country has gone to rack and ruin therefore, because the two leaders of the two major political parties are engaged in an endless political game of seeing who will blink first. It seems a good time therefore to point out that neither Patterson nor Seaga is going anywhere fast. There are people in the JLP who are viscerally opposed to Bruce succeeding Seaga, and others viscerally opposed to Seaga's continuing. In a situation like this neither camp will permit their candidates to make any move that might weaken the camp itself. So both men have effectively check-mated each other.
The good news is that in the JLP there are a large number of new MPs who are bright and under 40, or just over 40, and never been in government. So it is unlikely that they will want to watch other people gazing at their navels, nor find the process even remotely interesting. Also significant in terms of succession is that, save Bruce Golding, only Ken Baugh on that side of the House has ever held a Cabinet position. The possibility exists therefore that the JLP may indeed provide something fresh to the country. But nobody better look for it this year, or next, or even the year after that. This has become a horrible and self-destructive waiting game and deeply injurious to the national psyche.
