MAYBE THE decision of Dr. Karl Blythe to leave representational politics will have some impact on the governing People's National Party and its fortunes at the next general election, especially if the vote is held within the next few months rather than the constitutionally outside period at the end of 2007.
Perhaps! For Dr. Blythe, the politician who doesn't smoke or drink and, by his admission, never tells a lie, unless he later apologises, is said to be popular in his Central Westmoreland constituency and in some circles of the PNP.
Indeed, Dr. Blythe has been consistently returned as MP for the constituency since 1989 and comfortably retains his post as a vice-president of the party, even though the delegates firmly rejected his bid for the top post and the right to be Prime Minister of Jamaica this past February.
But despite Dr. Blythe's conviction of his importance to the PNP and the talent he would bring to the administration, as has been demonstrated by his pouting agitation for a Cabinet post, the current PNP leader, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller need not be overly concerned by his impending departure. Indeed, Mrs. Simpson Miller should grasp Dr. Blythe's retreat as one opportunity for reform and renewal.
The first point of which the Prime Minister has to be aware is that Dr. Blythe will hardly be missed on the national political stage. Even if, as has been suggested, his presence in the PNP presidential race, strategically helped Mrs. Simpson Miller, he is no Dr. Phillips or Dr. Davies, the PM's other rivals in the contest. Neither does Dr. Blythe have the party political clout of Dr. Phillips, who Mrs. Simpson Miller narrowly defeated, nor the private sector backing or the international and intellectual provenance of Finance Minister Davies.
Moreover, Dr. Blythe, even if he can win his Central Westmoreland seat, is, at the national level, hardly a pristine political package. To put it bluntly, he does not have much to offer.
Mrs. Simpson Miller need only recall of the Operation PRIDE scandal in which there was approximately nearly $1 billion of taxpayers' money flowed down the drain and for which several persons are now before the courts for fraud. Of course, no one attempted to or impugned Dr. Blythe's personal honesty. The Angus Report into the affair, however, painted Dr. Blythe as an interventionist minister whose style created an environment of managerial looseness in which such behaviour could thrive. Mr. Angus reported that Operation PRIDE was run like a 'brotherhood', although he stopped short of describing of what kind. The Rattray Report, however, cleared Dr. Blythe of wrongdoing.
Mrs. Simpson Miller should note that while her predecessor, Mr. P.J. Patterson, endorsed an unusual and controversial review that attempted to impugn an official government inquiry, he never entertained Dr. Blythe's petty and petulant demand for a seat in Cabinet; and there has been no fallout from her decision to keep him out of the Government.
The Prime Minister has not done a particularly good job so far of signalling a reshaping of the Jamaican political process and of ending cronyism in government. While this is not necessarily a charge levelled at Dr. Blythe, she could use the opportunity of the space he leaves to show she has the gumption to make the requisite change.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
