Mark Golding, president of the People’s National Party (PNP), squandered what was likely his last opportunity to woo undecided and first-time voters in especially marginal seats, who, I believe, are now the definite kingmakers. Consequently, the PNP’s 86th Annual Conference last Sunday was a dud.

Traditionally, the PNP has had a larger base compared to that of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Except for the most rabid Comrades, I believe 89 Old Hope Road accepts that Norman Manley’s party no longer has the decided advantage of a larger base. Today, the lion’s share of the PNP’s voter support comes from individuals over 55 years of age. Several scientific polls have said so. Efforts by the PNP to replenish its base with younger people have not had great success in recent times.

The JLP, on the other hand, has succeeded in expanding its base with young people. Several scientific polls have said so. I believe the JLP now has a slightly larger base than the PNP. At the same time, I think, the result of elections in especially marginal seats, the majority of constituencies, are decided by undecided and first-time voters. This is good for democracy.

OLD VS NEW PARADIGMS

For many years it was accepted that the energising of the party base was the primary, if not the only objective of the annual conference of our two major political parties. There is a new reality in our politics, which I don’t believe the PNP has seized.

The base of either party is very unlikely by themselves to secure the political bacon in a general election. Annual national conferences, therefore, have to adopt a big tent approach in tone, tenor, and theme.

Yes, our major parties have to still use the annual conferences to energise and reinvigorate their base, but they have to simultaneously impress and persuade the undecided, plus first-time voters. The parties have to impress and persuade these groups that they have new and/or better ideas which can personally benefit them socially and economically.

There is also a growing and very muscular cohort of voters who have to be convinced that party promises are fundable without destabilising the economic recovery programme which was started in 2010 while Prime Minister Bruce Golding was at Jamaica House and Audley Shaw was the minister of finance and the public service.

Discerning Jamaicans will not be swayed by bluster, guest appearances by social media influencers, popular culture crowd-pullers, fake news purveyors, those who are well known for bait-and-switch histrionics, and/or those who wear long and sometimes new shiny robes, like Brother Jero in Wole Soyinka’s classic The Trials of Brother Jero. In Soyinka’s celebrated play, the Nigerian Nobel Prize laureate piercingly uses satiric jabs to demonstrate how religion is used by political interests to anaesthetise especially the unsuspecting. I highly recommend Soyinka’s masterpiece.

We the discerning will not be fooled. Albert Einstein is credited with saying: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

As a country, we need to get out of the “if mi did know” fixation, like 50 years ago. Our love affairs with “buying puss inna bag” and Nicodemus-type political ploys — which thankfully are waning — have cost us dearly. We have a duty, as citizens, to interrogate those who come to the country purporting to sell us salvation. Jamaica needs to move forward by great leaps, not mere inches.

We need to know how Golding’s ideas will be operationalised? Folks need to be convinced that the Opposition’s ideas are fundable. I have examined information in the public domain from last Sunday’s conference, plus previous presentations by Opposition spokespersons, and listened to presentations from recent public Opposition fora. I have not seen anything resembling rational answers to how the PNP’s mountain of promises will be funded.

Are taxes going to be massively increased?

Are we going to return to the days of debilitating borrowing and, once again, be crippled by a mountain of debt?

Show us the funding is the new paradigm.

Opposition spokesperson on finance and the public service Julian Robinson said at last Sunday’s conference that a future PNP Administration will grow the economy. This caused me to perk up. Prior to that alert, I almost fell asleep during Robinson’s presentation. I listened, hoping, to hear ‘the how’. It did not come. I was not totally surprised.

Decades of anecdotal and verified statistical evidence prove that the PNP has never grown the economy of Jamaica in a sustained manner. I have previously delved into this subject here.

The fact is, the only party which has achieved sustained economic growth here at home is the JLP. It did so in the 1960s and again the 1980s.

Anyway, compared to previous conferences, last Sunday’s had great compute- generated graphics. The PNP are obviously improving where certain aspects of political coordination and choreography are concerned. And it is also obvious that someone has started to give them some amount of guidance in the use of semiotics, especially cultural symbols.

Golding spoke from a prepared script and did not go off on a frolic of fake ‘rootmanism’, which I said here more than three years ago, made him sound inauthentic and unpleasantly comical.

I give the logistics organisers credit for pulling out all the stops to ensure that the National Arena was packed with hundreds of party faithful.

News flash! The mentioned improvements at the PNP’s conference won’t positively affect the pockets and dinner tables of the vast majority of Jamaicans.

These are serious times. Several countries globally are on the brink of famine. Inflation, though decreasing globally, is still wreaking havoc on many economies, including several of our major trading partners. Some economic pundits predict a recession in the American economy next year, and the United Kingdom is still trapped in the economic doldrums.

KARTEL EFFECT

Last Sunday’s conference succeeded in exciting the base, indeed. The old objective of preaching to the converted was not only met, it was surpassed. But, I think the PNP failed miserably to charm, let alone persuade voters who are looking for a political home.

The PNP dissolved the mentioned positives in one fell swoop when it paraded Vybz Kartel, a man of questionable character, on the platform. The red carpet was rolled out for him. Senior party officials say it was not. Their words seem to directly contradict what was seen.

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and philosopher. I agree.

PNP General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell sat on the podium while the Kartel spectacle unfolded. He did not stop it. Did Golding approve Kartel’s platform presence?

Golding has branded himself Mr Accountability, Transparency and Integrity; however, his political fruits do not align with his words. I have been warning in this space, with ample examples, for many months that the PNP has become a devalued party and was being led by devalued leaders. I stand by that.

Recall the unfortunate posture Golding’s predecessor, Dr Peter Phillips, adopted when Basil Waite, the PNP’s deputy general secretary, dropped the contemptible bomb at a party rally in St Elizabeth, just days before our celebration of Emancipation and Independence, in 2019.

This was the shameful utterance by Waite: “And some of the likkle nasty nayga dem, who ah call themselves Labourite…” He later gave a mealy-mouthed apology, consistent with a dystopian-like narrative. Waite said his remark was “awkwardly put”, and he did not “intend to offend anyone”. (Jamaica Observer, August 11, 2019)

Recall also that in a video circulated on social media, Dr Peter Phillips was seated on the very podium only metres away from where Waite delivered the despicable comments. Dr Phillips did not grab the microphone from Waite and tell him to stop what he had been doing.

I continue to believe that Golding, Dr Phillips’s successor is not prime ministerial material. He has been consistently inconsistent, especially since his ascension to the helm of Norman Manley’s party in 2020. This is a great harbinger.

QUICK GETAWAY AND ABSENCE

On the matter of warnings, even those who glanced at the PNP conference would have noticed that Jamaica’s winningest prime minister, P J Patterson was not in attendance. Not even a message from Patterson was read to the gathering. Did Patterson’s no-show have anything to do with statements he made at The University of the West Indies, Mona, recently?

Recall that, while speaking at a ‘Reasoning about the Jamaican Constitution’ with members of the public at the Faculty of Law, Patterson spoke candidly.

“Patterson suggested that positions such as the chief of [defence] staff, permanent secretaries, members of the defence board, the chief justice, the president of the Court of Appeal, electoral commissioners, and the director of elections should not hold dual citizenship.

“ ‘There are some positions that I think have to make it clear that allegiance is to Jamaica alone,’ he added.”

He said that over the life of his 14-year reign as prime minister he put people forward for appointment who had dual citizenship. When discussion of the possibility of renouncing because of the sensitivity of the positions they were to hold were had, he said that “without hesitation, they renounced”. (The Gleaner, June 6, 2024)

At the conference, Golding’s predecessor, Dr Peter Phillips, told Comrades he had a flight to catch and exited in a hurry after a short address. Did Dr Phillips’s quick exit have anything to do with the residual lacerations from the bitter leadership battle between him and Peter Bunting, a key lieutenant of Golding? It is an open secret that the PNP is still divided between the ‘One PNP’ clique and the ‘Rise Untied’ crew.

One does not need a degree in political science to figure that things are not all hunky-dory at 89 Old Hope Road. People don’t vote for divided parties to form administrations. Plasters and band-aids cannot cover the holes in the dam of Norman Manley’s party.

Incidentally, Golding and Julian Robinson say they have renounced their British citizenships. How come they did not parade the renunciation certificate at the conference as proof? Interesting!

PREDICTORS, NO!

It is an undeniable fact that last Sunday’s conference was well attended, unlike in recent years.

“Higgins, the crowd at the National Arena is massive,” exclaimed a friend of mine who called me in a bout of excitement. “We have this one in the bag,” she declared.

I reminded her that crowds at political gatherings and party conferences have their uses, but they are not predictors of election victories.

I have set out four instances here since there are doubtless other persons like my friend.

Recall former Prime Minister Michael Manley’s famous political gaffe in Sam Sharpe Square in Montego Bay, St James, prior to the October 30, 1980 General Election. Manley famously declared, “150,000 strong cannot be wrong.” When the votes were counted, Edward Seaga and the JLP had won 51 of the then 60 seats in Parliament.

Remember the massive crowd that gathered at the JLP’s annual conference in 2011. The general election was held on December 29 of that year. The PNP won a landslide victory.

Recall that after our first female Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller declared she was “touched by the master” the PNP had a huge rally in Half-Way-Tree on Sunday, January 31, 2016 to announce the date for our 17th parliamentary election. Comrades thought it was all in the bag. The JLP won the general election held on February 25, 2016.

The crowd illusion/delusion is not a local phenomenon. “I can feel it in my bones,” are famous words of the very charismatic Sir Winston Churchill. “We’re going to win,” Churchill said at a massive election rally in 1945. But Churchill’s bones were wrong. In fact, he suffered a landslide defeat at the hands of a rather stodgy Clement Attlee.

Crowds are not predictors of election results.

Garfield Higgins is an educator, journalist, and a senior advisor to the minister of education and youth. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.