PEOPLE’S National Party (PNP) officials credit a stronger machinery, more effective communication programme and “better leader” for the party’s 42-21 seat victory in the December 29, 2011 general election that not only crushed the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) but historically swept it out of office after just one term.

But at the heart of that impressive victory was PJ Patterson, the former prime minister and PNP president who has earned a reputation for successful electioneering, having played a key role in the party’s return to power in 1989 under the leadership of his predecessor Michael Manley, and then leading the PNP to three successive victories between 1993 and 2002.

Patterson, who retired from active politics in March 2006, was joined in the just concluded campaign by PNP veterans Alston Stewart and Dr Vin Lawrence. The trio contributed vital and valuable time, energy and effort to the victory, turning what many expected would be a tight rush to the finish line into a virtual one-horse race.

“They were all helpful and stepped in to give advice and guidance to the campaign process,” admitted PNP General Secretary Peter Bunting, who himself staved off a gallant challenge by former director of elections and ex-customs chief Danville Walker in the Manchester Central constituency.

“In respect of Comrade Patterson, he led a number of outreach events in Kingston, Mandeville, Montego Bay and Portmore that targeted professionals and businesspersons, which were very successful,” said Bunting.

“Many of those persons ended up working on constituency campaign teams or assisting the party at other levels,” Bunting said, adding that along the way, Patterson, Stewart and Dr Lawrence availed themselves to younger members of the campaign team, so that knowledge, information and strategies could be passed on to the next generation.

“In all cases they were giving guidance to teams of younger people who were being mentored, therefore the transferral of knowledge was facilitated,” Bunting said.

Bunting’s comments were corroborated by Stewart, the PNP’s campaign administrator who is also a veteran media owner and construction mogul.

“We have the best campaign machinery in the English-speaking Caribbean,” Stewart boasted. “We have the best campaign managers at all levels and when the machinery is united and all hands are on deck, we are unstoppable.”

In also singling out Patterson’s role in the campaign, Stewart said that the former prime minister added nourishing ingredients to the PNP’s pot.

“Mr Patterson was the campaign counsellor. He co-ordinated and participated in our strategy group meetings. We decided to modernise the campaign management and collectively agreed that the campaign administrator would act in the role of chief operating officer of the campaign, which brought a great level of efficiency.

“It was more in keeping with the campaigns of between 1993 and 2002. We had contributions from Vin in a number of critical areas,” said Stewart, who was not a central part of the PNP’s September 2007 election campaign, a time when the party was bitterly divided following a leadership change a year-and-a-half before.

The PNP lost that election to the JLP, denying Portia Simpson Miller — who had succeeded Patterson — a mandate from the Jamaican electorate.

However, the divisions of 2007 were absent in the 2011 election as the PNP campaigned as a team, rather than placing Simpson Miller out front as it did in 2007.

“The PNP had a better leader and team. Head to head the electorate realised that we had the better leader, spokespersons and the better constituency representatives,” Bunting told the Sunday Observer in an interview.

“We also had a stronger party machinery. We did a frank appraisal after the 2007 elections and made a strategic effort to renew and build the party into a 21st century progressive political organisation over the last four years.

“The PNP also had a more focused communication — a clear, simple and consistent communication programme, contrasting the trustworthy and people-centred approach of the PNP with that of the JLP,” added Bunting who is now the minister of national security.

According to Bunting, there was no clear-cut or defining moment in the PNP gaining the ascendancy and going on to win the election, but the party’s outreach programme, led by its bus tour, tipped the scales in its favour.

“It is hard to identify one defining moment, but certainly the first PNP Express bus tour signalled to me that the PNP was in power, even though the JLP was in office. The selection of ‘People Power’ as the slogan and theme of the campaign, and the performance of all our representatives in the three sets of debates were all significant events,” Bunting said.

The campaign by the JLP and its young professionals affiliate Generation 2000 (G2K), which analysts described as negative and offensive against Simpson Miller in particular, was another factor that turned the people against the JLP, Bunting reasoned.

“I think it contributed, but the major contributor was the nature of their performance in Government and their poor track record and the highhandedness. The ad campaign only reflected how out of touch they were with the populace,” said Bunting, a former Campion College student.

With the general election out of the way, the party’s focus now is on the long overdue local government election, which must be held by March of this year.

“The PNP is a firm believer in local government, which is why there is the establishment of a full local government ministry. We will be taking it as serious as we took the national election,” said Stewart.

As for Bunting, his role in managing the job of Cabinet minister, MP and PNP general secretary will only be successful if he gets full co-operation from the people who work with him at various levels.

“In all cases I will work through teams and I am fortunate to have very strong teams in all three areas,” he said. “They are all critically important roles and I feel a great sense of responsibility and commitment to do my best in each area.”