From very early in my life, my primary school days, I came to the realisation that in any gathering of human beings and in the pursuit of any human endeavour, the best available person should always lead.

Unfortunately, greed and the lust for power have oftentimes caused men and women of limited ability to push themselves to the front. This more often than not leads to dire consequences for the group.

Jamaica is a case study of the awful outcomes that can ensue when the best available person is pushed aside and not allowed to lead. I will be delving into a bit of political history, because it is said that a people who do not know their history will repeat it. It is also said that “Young bud don’t know storm”. From my own analysis of the recent local government elections, and listening to Karen Cecelia Cross — a Comrade who call it as she sees it — in her podcast, it was apparent that the very young voters came out for the PNP candidates, and as Cross said, they were urged to come out and get rid of Brogad. They do not know what they were wishing for, so to provide some clarity for them I decided to pen this column.

Jamaica gained its Independence in 1962, and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), led by its founder Alexander Bustamante, started us on the journey to the ‘Promised Land’. This journey continued under Donald Sangster and then Hugh Lawson Shearer. We were doing well. We had average annual growth of six per cent during the decade of the 1960s. For two of those years we surpassed the mighty Singapore. According to World Bank data, in 1965 Jamaica’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in current US dollars was US$518 while that of Singapore was US$464. In 1966 the per capita GDP was Jamaica US$552 and Singapore US$516. Jamaica’s lead over Singapore was not a one-year fluke. Lee Kuan Yew, then prime minister of Singapore, even came to Jamaica to see what we were doing. Some of what made Singapore great was copied from Jamaica!

Even though we were doing well, not everyone was satisfied. I do not believe that the day will ever come when everyone’s expectations are met. The year 1968 was a challenging one for Jamaica. In that year the law was passed that would allow Jamaica to move from pounds, shillings, and pence to dollars and cents in September 1969. This caused a devaluation of the currency and there was a moderate rise in inflation, which triggered a spate of wage demands, and when these were not met, strikes ensued. It was then that the Ethiopians made the hit song Everything Crash. This was ironic because, with the benefit of hindsight, we now know that those were our best years.

Additionally, the currency changeover and the price adjustments which followed it gave rise to one of the greatest mischief to ever befall the Jamaican people: the People’s National Party’s (PNP) lies about two missing schools. In 1966, the Shearer Government got a World Bank loan to build 50 secondary schools. These schools are the backbone of the school infrastructure in Jamaica today. The rising prices and construction variation at the time forced a cutback of two of the planned schools.

Then PNP Member of Parliament Michael Manley was advised of the shortfall. He willing accepted that his constituency would have to do without the school that was earmarked for it. As proof of the two missing schools, Manley was quick to point journalists to the vacant lot where the school should have been built. There was no corruption which caused the two schools to not be built, as the DaCosta enquiry found. The PNP, nevertheless, used the false allegation of corruption like the sword of Damocles to destroy the Shearer Government.

I say all this to show the gimmickry and trickery that was used in 1972 to seize power from one of Jamaica’s most prosperous governments. Within one year of assuming office, the Manley Government started going downhill. They burnt through a reserve of US$157 million in short order. In June 1973 his Government had to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for support. They got a one-year standby agreement for 26.5 million special drawing rights. Half of this sum was used before the agreement expired. I need not reiterate here the many hardships which the Manley Government rained on the people. Those atrocities are well documented.

Jamaica was delivered from its misery in 1980 by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), led by the brilliant Edward Seaga. Seaga set about and cleaned up the mess caused by Manley and he also cleaned up after Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. Building a country can never be done as rapidly as destroying it, and the impatient electorate once again fell for the sweet lies of the PNP. It was enthralled by the PNP’s promise of “We put People First”. They were unmindful of Seaga’s adage that “It takes cash to care”. They also gave no rating to the fact that people have to be led by men and women with brilliant minds and smart thinkers, not just by men with the gift of gab.

Jamaicans soon realised what the second coming of Manley/Patterson and the PNP would mean. Their first blunder was the mismanagement of foreign exchange. Where Seaga was able to hold the dollar at $5.50 to US$1, in short order the dollar started its cartwheeling and with that inflation took flight. Again, the misery of that period is well documented. Suffice it to say, it was during this period that the nation was “Finsaced”, during which 100-year-old companies went bankrupt as well as over 40,000 others. To escape the misery, many Jamaicans took their own lives, including a former governor of the Bank of Jamaica. The only growth area of the economy was extortion, scamming, and remittance coming from families in the Diaspora who did not want their loved ones to starve.

Jamaica was placed on the path to the Promised Land by the JLP three times and three times the progress was derailed by the PNP with their lies, deception, and trickery. There is a saying: “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”. It would seem as if the giver and receiver of foolishness have no shame.

Jamaicans need to understand that mules will never produce young ones, so too the PNP will never bring prosperity to this country. It should be clear to all that with the PNP it is party and supporters before country, which is not a sustainable model. While it is good for the party, it is bad for the country. With the JLP, it is country first, and that is why it suffers politically. If the JLP can get the balance right, it should be able to stay in power and do good for the country.

Jamaica has the best available man at the helm. Andrew Michael Holness, otherwise known as Brogad, is that man. If we wish this country well, we should leave him alone to do his job.

Dorlan H Francis is the Jamaica Labour Party caretaker of St Andrew Western. He is a personal financial adviser and author. Among his books is The Economic and Financial Crisis of 2007 — What Caused it: How to Avoid a Repeat. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or dhfken1@gmail.com.