Bruce Golding is prepared to work for the time being as leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) with a trusted opposition leader, freeing him to build back the JLP and promote healing after the bitter divisions that have splintered the party in recent times, Sunday Observer sources have revealed.

Golding did not immediately return Sunday Observer calls to his cell phone, but usually reliable sources said the JLP chairman was not hostile to the idea of separate persons holding the two positions until the next elections. Edward Seaga, who has set his departure for November at the party’s annual conference, now fills both positions.

“There are two good reasons for Mr Golding’s emerging position,” one source said. “He is not overly inclined to ask someone who has been elected by his constituents to give up that seat to him (Golding), and he is aware of the advantages of having someone he trusts as opposition leader tending to the business of the Parliament, and leaving him free to build back the party and promote the healing process.”

Golding, who is currently JLP chairman, has refused to be goaded into an announcement about his plans regarding the party leader’s job, telling reporters recently: “I have a very clear time frame in my head. But even if you were my best friend, I wasn’t going to share that with you.”

But his supporters in the reformist wing of the party have been busy putting together the package of ideas and issues which will guide him in the role of party leader, should he accept.

When they have duly laid to rest the venerable Hugh Lawson Shearer, former JLP prime minister of Jamaica, the reformist wing is expected to unveil the document detailing the intended reforms covering issues like term limits, a fixed election date and separation of powers. It will become the official platform for a Golding leadership campaign, after the party chairman’s backers approve it, said Dr Horace Chang who has emerged as one of Golding’s leading spokesmen.

Chang, the deputy leader for the JLP’s Area Council 4, said consensus had not yet been reached on the slate of issues, but the discussions were ongoing and the document should be ready by month-end.

The discussions were apparently short-circuited by the death last week of Shearer, which has unwittingly provided reprieve from a bitter wrangling in the party over disparaging statements made by JLP leader Edward Seaga about Golding’s leadership abilities, in a letter announcing his planned resignation.

Shearer, who was prime minister from 1967 to 1972, is to be buried at the National Heroes Park on July 18.

“Of course, Mr Shearer’s death has also put us in a state where everybody has to take a look at what and where we are and cool down a little bit,” Chang told the Sunday Observer. “Right now, most of what we are doing is out for another couple of weeks. Nobody in the party is going to get involved in very active politics in the two weeks.”

But despite Chang’s assertions, party insiders said campaigning was solidly under way by members of the so-called reform wing and those dubbed traditionalists who have lined up behind former deputy leader Pearnel Charles, Golding’s brother-in-law. Abe Dabdoub is said to be Charles’ de facto campaign manager.

Telephone calls to Charles were also not immediately returned. But last week Charles told the Observer that Audley Shaw, Derrick Smith, Mike Henry and Edmund Bartlett, from among whom a challenger to Golding was expected to emerge, had thrown their support behind him.

Golding, who has no seat in the Parliament, can become party leader, if he wins the vote in November, but can’t become opposition leader. By practice, the two positions have traditionally been held by one and the same person.

Since Seaga’s announcement that he would go in November, there has been speculation that a JLP MP would step aside. Golding would then run in the by-election and enter the House of Representatives, if he won.

But the Sunday Observer sources said Golding appeared to want to wait on the Electoral Office of Jamaica to create the three new seats already agreed on by the two parties – two in St Catherine and one in St James – that would bring the number of seats in the House to 63.

“There is a sense in the JLP that the two new St Catherine seats, as proposed, could be regarded as safe JLP seats, based on past electoral patterns. Golding would contest one of these. The People’s National Party agreed to the cuts to create the new constituencies, having satisfied themselves that the two marginal PNP seats affected would become safe PNP seats,” the source said.

Golding campaigner Chang said the party chairman would run a strong campaign, if he decided to run, based on key issues affecting the quality of governance.

Chang said many of the issues that would find their way into the document had long been advocated by Golding, noticeably so after he left the JLP in 1995 to form the now moribund National Democratic Movement (NDM) on a constitutional reform platform.

“We’ll be doing a formal document on it (the issues) in a couple of weeks. We have all the ideas that have been put on the table, which includes Mr Golding’s ideas that are well known, and some that we have… We are going to put it out in simple form,” Chang said.

He added: “The question of things like term limits, both within a party and in government, needs to be looked at. We have not had a decision to say two terms or one term; we just think it is a principle to be examined. There is also the whole question of the relationship between local government and central government and public accountability… Those are the things that we are going to fine tune.”

Another leading Golding supporter, Don Creary, one of the party’s four deputy general-secretaries, confirmed that the discussions were under way and that there were still issues to be finalised.

“We have a number of the policies under active consideration. We plan to show to this country, not just to the people within our party, but to the people of Jamaica that we have what it takes to make a difference,” he said.

Creary alluded to the leadership struggle in the party, saying there was need for a common vision around which the entire party could unite. “In many instances, people have seen our current leader as the party and vice versa. We believe that the party needs to come together around a common vision, a set of ideas – regardless of who holds what position.”

He added: “We believe that the party needs to be more open, more transparent and (that) we need to have a philosophy, a vision around which the party can unite. You cannot have an organisation wherein the leader is the central point of focus. In a scenario like that, if someone tears down the leader then it severely affects the organisation.”

Golding is also enjoying the support of Dr Christopher Tufton, president of Generation 2000, the young professional arm of the JLP, who finds some of the party chairman’s ideas attractive. Tufton followed Golding into the NDM and back into the JLP fold in 2003.

“I support issues like term limits. I support issues related to addressing corruption in public life. I support issues related to representation and trying to enhance representation at the constituency level. These are things that I believe in,” Tufton said.

But while they are clearly in support of much, if not all of Golding’s ideas, they clearly have their own, personal ideas for reform.

Chang, for one, has pointed to the need for upgrades to the offices of the members of parliament and the provision of “quality staff” to facilitate better delivery of services to the public.

“That ties into the whole question of giving a certain amount of the budget or discretionary spending in the constituency… to deal with small things in the constituency, which we can’t deal with now,” Chang said.

He also pointed to the need to implement internship programmes inside the offices of members of parliament to expose interested persons to their operations, even as such persons gained experience.

Creary, for his part, indicated that he wished to see a reduction in the size of the central government.

“One of the things that I would put on the table for any future JLP government is the size of government. When you see how our ministers of government live now in our society, in a failing economy… it is just plain wrong,” he noted.

“As a country, we cannot afford a lot of the perks that our officials have; we cannot afford the consultants, the cushy political jobs… So from my standpoint, that is one of the reforms I would like to see take place when we become government,” said Creary.

Meanwhile, Tufton and Daryl Vaz have reaffirmed their solid backing of Golding ahead of the official naming of a candidate by Seaga loyalists.

“As an individual, I am clearly a supporter of Mr Golding,” said Tufton. “I share some of his ideas, and as an individual, I am in support of his candidacy. I am available to do whatever I can to assist the process… I am certainly available to play whatever role I can to assist him.”

His sentiments were echoed by Vaz who handled the campaign financing for JLP Area Council 2 deputy leader James Robertson in his controversy-tainted run for that post last November. Vaz said he would be more than willing to fill a similar role in Golding’s campaign.

“I would be more than willing to do that… But at this point, I have not been formally asked to do anything,” he said. “I am working with Area Council 2, which I am an officer of, and working with the Area Council 2 campaign team, which worked with Robertson in November last year.”