Anniversaries of political parties and a new leadership challenge

This must be a trying weekend for the governing People's National Party (PNP). Casting a long shadow over the climax of its 75th anniversary celebrations, with the annual national conference today, are the two damning reports from the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) on the conduct of two ministers of government.

Junior minister of transport, works and housing, Richard Azan, over the role he played as member of parliament for North West Clarendon in the shops built in the Spaldings Market affair, a role which the OCG has labelled as "politically corrupt". And senior minister with responsibility for energy, Phillip Paulwell, over his role in influencing the bidding process to provide 360MW of additional energy to the national electricity grid.

Then there is the party's mayor of May Pen, Scean Barnswell, referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions by the OCG for possible prosecution over his role in the shops built in the Spaldings Market affair.

Lurking behind these scandals of the moment rocking the party is the state of the economy and society after an accumulated 35 years in government since the founding in September 1938, alternating with the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

As Comrades gather at the National Arena for conference today, Audley Shaw will be meeting with JLP delegates in Southern St Catherine seeking to convince them that he is the better leader to 'tek it' to the PNP and to party President Portia Simpson Miller at the next election, and return the JLP to power.

Uncommon challenge

For the first time since 1978 when Mike Henry tried, there will be a challenge to an incumbent leader of the JLP not retiring or resigning. The PNP has never had one since all of the previous three long-term leaders announced retirement, and with that, the need for replacement. The Shaw bid for leadership of the JLP cannot not be of concern to the PNP at conference.

The JLP, which celebrated its 70th anniversary in July and will have its annual national conference in November when Andrew Holness will either be confirmed or changed as leader, has formed the government for 32 years since its founding in 1943.

What the country is now is a direct consequence of the actions of these two political parties which have been forming the Government in alternation since universal adult suffrage in 1944. No other institutions have had the reach and influence that the PNP and the JLP have had in this country.

The vision and idealism attending the launch of the PNP at the Ward Theatre on September 18, 1938, the centennial year of 'Full Free' Emancipation, quickly wore thin. The Daily Gleaner reported the following day in reference to the speech by founding President Norman Manley that "a gathering sufficient to fill the theatre and crowd North Parade and Victoria Gardens thrilled to this most vital analysis of present conditions that has ever been offered to our community".

The PNP was formed as a conglomeration of progressive groups and individuals dedicated to the task of building a Jamaican nation. Its purpose was embedded in the name chosen. "It is called the people's party because it will unswervingly aim at all those measures which will serve the masses of the country," Norman Manley explained to the gathering at the Ward Theatre.

"It is called 'national'", Manley told the audience, because "if this country, if this little island of ours, is to be consolidated together and bettered, it must be by developing the idea of Jamaica as a national whole. And the party is pledged to the development of that national spirit.

"If we never desert our principles, if we believe in what we are aiming at, if we appreciate those who regard the country as their home, those who believe that a real civilisation is possible for people of mixed origins, if we never allow people to deflect us from our goals, those who would like to continue to live in the feeling that Jamaica is the grandest little country to make their living in [as Vision 2030 now aspires], and the nicest country in the world to have a holiday in - if we can do these things and be true to what we believe in - then I believe," N.W. Manley declared, "that we will have launched tonight a movement which is like nothing else started in Jamaica, and make of this country a real place that our children will be proud to say 'we come from Jamaica'."

Norman Manley was not right when he declared, "Mission accomplished", as he retired from the leadership of the party 31 years later in 1969. Yes, political Independence may have been accomplished, but by then, Jamaica had become a tribally splintered society and not a nation, and political violence had already become entrenched.

Alexander Bustamante, who was on the platform at the Ward Theatre that September evening in 1938, as the country's chief labour leader, broke from the PNP to form the JLP in 1943. The JLP was formed to be the political voice and the political arm of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union, and the PNP followed suit to establish unions affiliated to the party. Political unionism has been one of the significant negative features of our political history.

But of the JLP, Busta declared shortly after winning by a landslide the first elections under universal adult suffrage in 1944, "We are working to establish a balanced society in which all categories will get their fair share of the fruits of the land; a balanced society in which all the people involved will be compensated in relation to their ability and productivity; a balanced society in which adequate provision is made for those who are in need; a balanced society in which the maximum opportunity for employment is provided, a society in which the talents of our people will find an outlet in creative occupation. That, in a nutshell, defines the objectives of the JLP; and those objectives are confirmed not by resolutions, not by speeches, but by the record of work and the successes of the Government."

But the reality was that political victimisation and, with it, political/union violence kicked in from that very first administration under universal adult suffrage.

Obika Gray, having traced out the "fateful alliance" between political parties, trade unions, and gangs, in chapter two of his book Demeaned but Empowered: The Social Power of the Urban Poor in Jamaica, said, "The foregoing account has confirmed that the use of violence as a political tactic to win elections, defend political territory against rivals, and secure representation of workers in the trade-union movement actually began in the 1940s and not in the 1960s, as some observers have been wont to believe. Thus, from the moment Jamaicans won the right to vote, and native politicians got the opportunity to become incumbents of state power, political violence became an organising feature of Jamaican politics."

Deep-rooted violence

Amanda Sives, in her chapter 'The Historical Roots of Violence in Jamaica: The Hearne Report, 1949', in the book edited by Anthony Harriott, Understanding Crime in Jamaica: New Challenges for Public Policy, draws the same conclusion: "By 1949 (the year of the first commission of enquiry into political violence in Jamaica), both political parties were engaged in violence to achieve political goals." While the violence was fairly low-keyed compared to what was to follow, "organised violence and the links with criminal elements were features of the political system during this period. These experiences of political participation formed through violence on the streets, whether political party or trade union-inspired, helped to define the way in which relationships developed between individuals, their parties and their government."

That baby monster has grown into what we are confronted with today. The political parties proceeded to build garrisons which have become states within the State, as is now so amply demonstrated, and also the main centres of criminal violence and organised crime.

The fiscal recklessness and profligacy of the governments formed by these parties, partly to sustain political clientelism, have beggared the country, stifling growth and driven us into the arms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) again.

As the PNP gathers for conference and the contenders for the leadership of the JLP conduct constituency group meetings, the country is saddled by $1.8 trillion of debt. The dollar, which stood at parity at currency conversion in 1969, is now valued less than one US cent.

Unemployment now stands at 16.3 per cent, with youth unemployment at 38 per cent. Despite the media hue and cry about the upswing in unemployment by two percentage points, there is nothing particularly 'abnormal' about this level of unemployment. Since Independence, the unemployment figure has bounced between 12 and 16 per cent, except for a much sharper spike in the 1970s.

Governments formed by these two political parties have delivered significantly expanded access to education, but with poor performance dogging the system. Health care has been much improved, as is access to water, electricity and telephones. But crime, much of it a product of tribal politics, is an albatross around our national neck.

Vision 2030 proposes a new and different society, "the place of choice to live, work, raise families, and do business". The very first development plan in Independence, the Five-Year Development Plan for 1963-1968, made essentially the same proposition. It is Government and politics which must lead to the creation of a better society. And for this we are stuck with the PNP and the JLP.

Martin Henry is a communication specialist. Email feedback to medhen@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com.