It was party time for most labourites at yesterday’s public session
IF music is the food of love, then politics is the art of repeating catchy phrases, whipping supporters into a frenzy and greeting them in the name of ‘Jah’.
And the thousands of bell-ringing Labourites who came from every parish in Jamaica to attend yesterday’s public session of the Jamaica Labour Party’s 63rd annual conference in the capital, were in a frenzied mood.
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They were clearly there to party. They clapped, danced and rang bells, as speaker after speaker fed them the same political rhetoric: calling for a change in government.
“The corrupt, inept and scandal-ridden government led by P J Patterson must go,” was the call repeated by several speakers at the conference.
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But the day belonged to Opposition leader Bruce Golding.
It was his first conference as party leader, and former opposition leader Edward Seaga was nowhere in sight.
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Golding arrived, with wife Lorna Charles-Golding and daughter Sherine by his side.
When they caught sight of the party leader they began chanting “Bruce”, “Bruce”, “Bruce.”
The frenzy inside and outside the arena hit fever pitch.
Supporters broke through security barriers, chanting, dancing and mingling in what could be the biggest crowd of supporters seen at a party’s conference in the last 16 years.
The sea of green shirts, hats and other paraphernalia was as overwhelming as the marijuana smoke that filled the arena.
But the supporters who filled the corridors did not appear to be bothered by the overpowering smell of the ganja.
They danced, gyrated, and rang the bells they call “freedom bells”. Conference chairman Mayor Desmond Mckenzie, like most of the other speakers asked: “How long shall the wicked reign over my people?”
Meanwhile, the ever controversial Mike Henry, along with Shahine Robinson received rousing and sustained applause for greeting Labourites in the name of ‘Jah’.
Although there was little substance to their contribution, they nonetheless got the supporters on their feet. Henry pulled out a lighter, and told the audience that the light was a symbol to “re-ignite hope, justice, liberty and progress .”
He said another PNP government for Jamaica would bring Jamaica to a Haiti and a Colombia, as the “PNP took us from prosperity to food for the poor”.
The bow-legged Pearnel Charles also whipped the crowd into a frenzy, with the phrase, “all P a de same P. Sister P, or Peter Phillips” (two of four candidates vying for the presidency of the PNP). It was a phrase repeated by deputy leader Horace Chang, whose stage presence and delivery was lacklustre.
To Isis, a local male group, provided entertainment and their rendition of Ghetto Pain and Jimmy Cliffs Many rivers to cross, brought supporters on their feet in sustained frenzy, while they sang, waved green flags and green beer bottles.
An excited supporter climbed a tree, stood on a branch above the crowed and danced as he waved a medium-sized tree with dozens of small green leaves.
