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What if the PNP had won?
Wignall's World
Mark Wignall
Sunday, October 07, 2007
In 1972, after Michael Manley had handsomely won the February 29 general elections, I spent the next two days celebrating with 'like-minded' friends. Eight years later on October 30, 1980, the JLP trounced the Manley-led PNP in what is still to date the largest margin of victory of any election ever held.
Then I spent about three days basking in the victory which I began aching for four months after I had voted PNP in December 1976.
The voting behaviour of someone like me is very misunderstood by the many who see their diehard voting as par for the course.
Recently one of my online readers excoriated me for daring to express support for the JLP before and after the elections, accusing me of bias. His response is filled with unsubstantiated accusations and anger, and reflects a position being pushed by the 'C' team in the PNP.
He begins by quoting a few paragraphs from my Thursday column. I give it verbatim:
Although the accolades are slowly building for Golding, never have I seen an opposition party so hostile to a new government.
It is almost as if the PNP leader is saying, "A hope Golding fail, 'bout 'im a prime minister." One senses that her efforts are so focused on "the wrong" done to her via the JLP win that all other matters must fade into insignificance.
One gets the distinct impression that the lady is vexed, fuming and, any chance she gets, she will use it to let us know how terrible she feels.
You quoted the above paragraph in an article you wrote in the Observer published today.
When the JLP was in opposition for the 18 yrs, they were hostile, OK admit that firstly. Secondly, the PNP leader is doing what she is suppose to do, all the promises that JLP made, we will pressure them in pursuing them because the JLP said that it can happen, and that we are accustom to the poor quality of life, and service, so I have nothing against her forcing him to do all his promises, because when he does all this, it will make Jamaicans realise the mistake made at the polls on September 3, 2007, when tax raise and all other adjustments are done.
And if JLP paid people up to $15,000 to vote, what you expect who wouldn't be upset, JLP was so desperate to win they had to find all means and ways, especially in Mandeville, Sally had to go to the hospital when she realised she lost, because she had all the money in her hands to use, and she still lost.
All Butch and Lee Chin, Bruce just made JLP victorious at the polls so that these rich people who the PNP didn't get along with anymore, better off. Because they pumped their hearts and souls in it. When he went to the Caricom meeting and to the PM funeral in another island he used a jet(s) to transport himself and others, now who is paying for that, at least PJ, Portia would have used Air Jamaica, Bruce decided to use private jet, if Portia did that Bruce would of have gotten a heart attack.
You are so biased it sick my stomach.
The reader is echoing a position, the seeds of which were planted in his head by the 'vexed' team in the PNP. And because an integral part of that position speaks to a hardening of the class alignment and 'buyout' inherent in the reasons sought for the PNP loss, the small man has himself bought a part of the package and is seeing the JLP win as a step back for him and his family.
"The will of the people was subverted," said a 60-year-old dreadlocked vendor to me last Wednesday. "Big money bought the elections for the JLP, and people like you and your friends in the media must have collected," he said in straight, unbroken English while staring me in the eyes. When I asked him why he said that, his response was, "Yu si mi look like Bruce? Portia win an unnu help tief it fi Bruce."
I would have discussed the matter more in detail with him but when he told me that he had never voted for any other party but the PNP I decided against it. As I left and headed for my car I jokingly said to him, "But Dread, you nuh look like Michael Manley either." He laughed, and in parting made his own political wisecrack - "Next time, next time."
The foolishness being propagated by foolish ones about big money needs to be put to rest. The fact is, both the PNP and the JLP sought funding from the big players, but it seems to me that the unwillingness of the PNP leader to widen the scope of her private sector friends was a major factor in the PNP being forced to utilise 'funding' from other sources.
Second, it is no secret that very few of the big players had any respect for her due to her inability to act the part of, and be a real prime minister.
What many of those in the leadership of the PNP knew, except for the ex-prime minister, is that big money does not chase after losers. Once all the various projections were in and it was determined that the JLP would be winning the elections, those who had donated before simply continued. To be fair to the PNP, there were many in the private sector who saw 18 years of PNP rule with corruption increasing in the 2002 to 2007 period as the major hindrance to funding that party.
When the PNP president said at her party conference, '...and we owe no one anything', I was tempted to utter the standard Americanism, 'Duh.'
Losing parties never owe, dear Portia. There is nothing to pay back!
JLP would have fragmented had it lost
An election loss for the JLP would have placed an irreparable, deep dent in the democratic ideal. To me it is not enough that constant wins for one political party in a parliamentary democracy is written off as 'the will of the people'. If the PNP had been giving us good government, that is, our people were educated, civil (not passive), employed, healthy and our children and elderly had no reason to fear for their safety, it is still my belief that the PNP needed an election loss.
That it was growing increasingly corrupt and arrogant was more than enough reason for another worthy player to step in. It has been my observation that there are many persons in this country, outside of the political garrisons, who are just as tribalised as the worst PNP or JLP garrison. Many of them are locked into a psychological garrison and the longer the PNP remained in power, the more that automaton-like behaviour revealed itself. Indeed, after 18 years, the country had become 'PNP garrisoned' in behaviour.
A JLP loss would have seen the last deposit of that PNP win to seal the JLP's fate. Seeing another five years in opposition would not be the focus; rather, it would be seen as 23 years as a party which had, by virtue of election results, fallen totally out of grace with the Jamaican people.
Had the JLP lost, its path would have been unclear. First, if the second-tier leadership decided to stay the course for the next five years, a tough decision on Golding would have to be made. Do we keep him? they would probably ask, or do we dump him unceremoniously? And if we dump him, who do we replace him with?
Hindsight is a beauty, is it not. Having observed him as prime minister, we have no problem in saying now that Golding is made of the 'right stuff'. Would that right stuff be there had he LOST? Difficult to answer.
It is my belief that Golding would walk away because he would see himself as the cause of the defeat. Outside of Dr Baugh, the deputy prime minister and a highly respected man in all circles, is there one other person in the JLP who stands out as 'leadership' material?
I can see many bright and capable up-and-comers, but at this time, I cannot identify one who could step into the post right now.
For this reason, I believe, many of those in the business class and civil society would view a JLP loss as a crisis of monumental proportions, and they would move to rescue that party from falling into the doldrums. If at the 2012 elections the JLP lost again, the business class would abandon it and Jamaica would have to admit that it was indeed PNP country.
Likely scenario with a PNP win
When all of the objectives were examined individually, there were some important individuals in this society who saw a JLP win as superseding all other objectives. And I agreed with many of them.
Again hindsight. How would a petulant loser operate with an historical win?
Quite apart from what I saw as very obvious shortcomings in the resumé of the PNP leader, nothing scared me more than her actions in planting Lisa Hanna in South East St Ann. In a word, the thing I saw was 'dictatorship'.
A PNP win would have so empowered Portia Simpson Miller that I fear it would have transformed her into a mighty woman-god on earth. And it is also my belief that it would have empowered her to turn that power inwards, on her own party, and set out to destroy those who saw themselves (disdainfully or correctly) as superior to her intellectually.
Many in the society saw her as having more experience in political life and in the Parliament of this country than many others in the PNP government. If we are fair to ourselves we would admit that her application of that experience in the year-and-a-half that she was there was abysmal.
To give the PNP another five years would have totally sewn up all of the structures and groupings in this country with PNP thread. But I also believe that the colour of that thread would be yellow. I make that point because that 'Team Portia' colour was very prominent throughout the election campaign. That colour and, more importantly, that mood generated by her 'own' mandate would have driven a sharp wedge down the middle of the party.
She could not just remove Omar Davies, as some were making out she should do had the PNP won. From my understanding, Portia is not a person in love with details. She would have been aware that Davies was there right throughout the PNP wins from 1993 onwards. Why change a winning combination? Any attempt to force Davies' removal would have resulted in much disgruntlement in the PNP Cabinet and would have some asking, 'Am I next?'
Basically, it is my belief that the raw power which she had begun to love and grow into in the latter part of her stint as the first PNP unelected prime minister would have moved her to fully enter the phase of her redistributionist ideas which she learned from the 'quixotic' Michael Manley.
Serious rifts on policy differences in the Cabinet would have isolated her, and where it could result in crises in the government, I believe it would have driven her to seek stronger alliances at home (the C team) and especially abroad (Hugo Chavez).
A win for the PNP in 2007 would have cemented the idea that 'the people love me' firmly in her mind, and she would have tried to emulate every failed policy that had been a throwback to the turbulent 1970s. A win for the PNP in 2007 would have been good for the PNP leader. It would have been even better for those who went on a shredding-of-documents mission after the JLP win on September 3.
What about the death penalty?
In the last 11 years, I have wavered on capital punishment, behaving like a yo-yo in instances. Let me state that I am not one of those who believe that the death penalty is a deterrent to a runaway murder rate. For me, a man who leaves his house by night to rape and murder another human being, or one who kills another after holding him up at gunpoint, both deserve to die.
In a perverse way, the relatives of the victim need their pound of flesh. You denied me the love of the one I loved. You took away the warmth, the smile, the frown, the burst of laughter, the embrace and you did it with glee.
You smiled as you killed the person dear to me and now that you have been caught and it has been established beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are the killer, you expect me to imprison you and to feed you for life while you still operate and plan to kill others behind bars.
Nothing irks as much as the fact that a convicted, cold-blooded murderer is being part-fed by the relatives of the victim. But why am I now wavering again?
First, if we want proof that the death penalty DOES NOT act as a deterrent to murder, all we have to do is examine not so much the records of police killings of civilians over the years, but the fact that many in the police force are judge, jury and executioner.
In other words, in Jamaica, the death penalty is not just on the books, it is very much in operation.
In 1996, the police shot and killed four young men at a house about 40 metres from the Denham Town Police Station. The police report on radio said the men were shot and injured and on arrival at the hospital, they were pronounced dead.
My investigations during the time when gun violence broke out in Tivoli, Denham Town and Rema revealed a different picture.
On the smooth concrete flooring in the house where two of the men had been killed, there were bloody drag marks. Are injured men usually dragged along the ground?
I will not bore you too much with the details because I have written at length on the matter.
To cut to the chase, my intervention at the time invited additional attention, and while a well-known talk show host along with members of the security forces toured the troubled area, a woman from the community said, 'Mi not saying dem is not gunman, but dem neva did have any gun da day deh.'
That is what moves the police to commit murder.
If two poor young men are walking in a ghetto area and they are accosted by the police, something of the sort will usually happen. The police vehicle stops and three or four of them rush out. To the men they shout, "Go over the wall deh so, bway!"
The boys go against the wall. Routinely they are slapped on the sides of the face or rammed in the sides with rifles. "Whey unnu a go? Whey unnu a come from? Whey de gun deh, bway?" Some slaps again.
In searching one, a gun is found. It is quite possible, though not likely, that his friend knows nothing about the gun. As the gun is taken away the boys begin to cry. The police use their guns to pummel them, in the sides, on the legs.
Then the policemen back away while the boys sense the death coming. They begin to shout, "Murder, murder!" The police give themselves more distance. The boys are begging as they try to blend into the hard concrete of the wall.
The first burst of gunfire nearly cuts one in two. The others open up and in seconds the two boys are dead. That is standard operational procedure when a gun is found.
Now, I am not saying that there are not some vicious animals in our environment, because there are too many, bred by years of social neglect, political machinations and governmental mismanagement.
Anyone who makes out that what I say is isolated, is living a lie. But, and here is where the real problem lies, what is a policeman to do if he knows that a young man is a cold-blooded killer? Must he wait until he catches him in the act?
The art of good detective work has become a thing of the past because so much of it, especially where it involves murder and residents of the inner-city communities, can be solved by the police murdering the murderers.
Said a police superintendent to me recently, "What must we do? We take then in and if they have connections, especially in the drug underworld, they are out again on bail murdering again!'
The JLP has committed itself to putting some teeth back into the death penalty. Just watch those concerned as they try to back-pedal on this one. All polls have consistently shown that the vast majority of our people are in favour of the noose swinging again.
The JLP Government will have to answer the call. Who will speak for those who had no guns, no ammunition but who fell on the wrong side of a murderous, rogue cop?
Wignall's World
Mark Wignall
Sunday, October 07, 2007
In 1972, after Michael Manley had handsomely won the February 29 general elections, I spent the next two days celebrating with 'like-minded' friends. Eight years later on October 30, 1980, the JLP trounced the Manley-led PNP in what is still to date the largest margin of victory of any election ever held.
Then I spent about three days basking in the victory which I began aching for four months after I had voted PNP in December 1976.
The voting behaviour of someone like me is very misunderstood by the many who see their diehard voting as par for the course.
Recently one of my online readers excoriated me for daring to express support for the JLP before and after the elections, accusing me of bias. His response is filled with unsubstantiated accusations and anger, and reflects a position being pushed by the 'C' team in the PNP.
He begins by quoting a few paragraphs from my Thursday column. I give it verbatim:
Although the accolades are slowly building for Golding, never have I seen an opposition party so hostile to a new government.
It is almost as if the PNP leader is saying, "A hope Golding fail, 'bout 'im a prime minister." One senses that her efforts are so focused on "the wrong" done to her via the JLP win that all other matters must fade into insignificance.
One gets the distinct impression that the lady is vexed, fuming and, any chance she gets, she will use it to let us know how terrible she feels.
You quoted the above paragraph in an article you wrote in the Observer published today.
When the JLP was in opposition for the 18 yrs, they were hostile, OK admit that firstly. Secondly, the PNP leader is doing what she is suppose to do, all the promises that JLP made, we will pressure them in pursuing them because the JLP said that it can happen, and that we are accustom to the poor quality of life, and service, so I have nothing against her forcing him to do all his promises, because when he does all this, it will make Jamaicans realise the mistake made at the polls on September 3, 2007, when tax raise and all other adjustments are done.
And if JLP paid people up to $15,000 to vote, what you expect who wouldn't be upset, JLP was so desperate to win they had to find all means and ways, especially in Mandeville, Sally had to go to the hospital when she realised she lost, because she had all the money in her hands to use, and she still lost.
All Butch and Lee Chin, Bruce just made JLP victorious at the polls so that these rich people who the PNP didn't get along with anymore, better off. Because they pumped their hearts and souls in it. When he went to the Caricom meeting and to the PM funeral in another island he used a jet(s) to transport himself and others, now who is paying for that, at least PJ, Portia would have used Air Jamaica, Bruce decided to use private jet, if Portia did that Bruce would of have gotten a heart attack.
You are so biased it sick my stomach.
The reader is echoing a position, the seeds of which were planted in his head by the 'vexed' team in the PNP. And because an integral part of that position speaks to a hardening of the class alignment and 'buyout' inherent in the reasons sought for the PNP loss, the small man has himself bought a part of the package and is seeing the JLP win as a step back for him and his family.
"The will of the people was subverted," said a 60-year-old dreadlocked vendor to me last Wednesday. "Big money bought the elections for the JLP, and people like you and your friends in the media must have collected," he said in straight, unbroken English while staring me in the eyes. When I asked him why he said that, his response was, "Yu si mi look like Bruce? Portia win an unnu help tief it fi Bruce."
I would have discussed the matter more in detail with him but when he told me that he had never voted for any other party but the PNP I decided against it. As I left and headed for my car I jokingly said to him, "But Dread, you nuh look like Michael Manley either." He laughed, and in parting made his own political wisecrack - "Next time, next time."
The foolishness being propagated by foolish ones about big money needs to be put to rest. The fact is, both the PNP and the JLP sought funding from the big players, but it seems to me that the unwillingness of the PNP leader to widen the scope of her private sector friends was a major factor in the PNP being forced to utilise 'funding' from other sources.
Second, it is no secret that very few of the big players had any respect for her due to her inability to act the part of, and be a real prime minister.
What many of those in the leadership of the PNP knew, except for the ex-prime minister, is that big money does not chase after losers. Once all the various projections were in and it was determined that the JLP would be winning the elections, those who had donated before simply continued. To be fair to the PNP, there were many in the private sector who saw 18 years of PNP rule with corruption increasing in the 2002 to 2007 period as the major hindrance to funding that party.
When the PNP president said at her party conference, '...and we owe no one anything', I was tempted to utter the standard Americanism, 'Duh.'
Losing parties never owe, dear Portia. There is nothing to pay back!
JLP would have fragmented had it lost
An election loss for the JLP would have placed an irreparable, deep dent in the democratic ideal. To me it is not enough that constant wins for one political party in a parliamentary democracy is written off as 'the will of the people'. If the PNP had been giving us good government, that is, our people were educated, civil (not passive), employed, healthy and our children and elderly had no reason to fear for their safety, it is still my belief that the PNP needed an election loss.
That it was growing increasingly corrupt and arrogant was more than enough reason for another worthy player to step in. It has been my observation that there are many persons in this country, outside of the political garrisons, who are just as tribalised as the worst PNP or JLP garrison. Many of them are locked into a psychological garrison and the longer the PNP remained in power, the more that automaton-like behaviour revealed itself. Indeed, after 18 years, the country had become 'PNP garrisoned' in behaviour.
A JLP loss would have seen the last deposit of that PNP win to seal the JLP's fate. Seeing another five years in opposition would not be the focus; rather, it would be seen as 23 years as a party which had, by virtue of election results, fallen totally out of grace with the Jamaican people.
Had the JLP lost, its path would have been unclear. First, if the second-tier leadership decided to stay the course for the next five years, a tough decision on Golding would have to be made. Do we keep him? they would probably ask, or do we dump him unceremoniously? And if we dump him, who do we replace him with?
Hindsight is a beauty, is it not. Having observed him as prime minister, we have no problem in saying now that Golding is made of the 'right stuff'. Would that right stuff be there had he LOST? Difficult to answer.
It is my belief that Golding would walk away because he would see himself as the cause of the defeat. Outside of Dr Baugh, the deputy prime minister and a highly respected man in all circles, is there one other person in the JLP who stands out as 'leadership' material?
I can see many bright and capable up-and-comers, but at this time, I cannot identify one who could step into the post right now.
For this reason, I believe, many of those in the business class and civil society would view a JLP loss as a crisis of monumental proportions, and they would move to rescue that party from falling into the doldrums. If at the 2012 elections the JLP lost again, the business class would abandon it and Jamaica would have to admit that it was indeed PNP country.
Likely scenario with a PNP win
When all of the objectives were examined individually, there were some important individuals in this society who saw a JLP win as superseding all other objectives. And I agreed with many of them.
Again hindsight. How would a petulant loser operate with an historical win?
Quite apart from what I saw as very obvious shortcomings in the resumé of the PNP leader, nothing scared me more than her actions in planting Lisa Hanna in South East St Ann. In a word, the thing I saw was 'dictatorship'.
A PNP win would have so empowered Portia Simpson Miller that I fear it would have transformed her into a mighty woman-god on earth. And it is also my belief that it would have empowered her to turn that power inwards, on her own party, and set out to destroy those who saw themselves (disdainfully or correctly) as superior to her intellectually.
Many in the society saw her as having more experience in political life and in the Parliament of this country than many others in the PNP government. If we are fair to ourselves we would admit that her application of that experience in the year-and-a-half that she was there was abysmal.
To give the PNP another five years would have totally sewn up all of the structures and groupings in this country with PNP thread. But I also believe that the colour of that thread would be yellow. I make that point because that 'Team Portia' colour was very prominent throughout the election campaign. That colour and, more importantly, that mood generated by her 'own' mandate would have driven a sharp wedge down the middle of the party.
She could not just remove Omar Davies, as some were making out she should do had the PNP won. From my understanding, Portia is not a person in love with details. She would have been aware that Davies was there right throughout the PNP wins from 1993 onwards. Why change a winning combination? Any attempt to force Davies' removal would have resulted in much disgruntlement in the PNP Cabinet and would have some asking, 'Am I next?'
Basically, it is my belief that the raw power which she had begun to love and grow into in the latter part of her stint as the first PNP unelected prime minister would have moved her to fully enter the phase of her redistributionist ideas which she learned from the 'quixotic' Michael Manley.
Serious rifts on policy differences in the Cabinet would have isolated her, and where it could result in crises in the government, I believe it would have driven her to seek stronger alliances at home (the C team) and especially abroad (Hugo Chavez).
A win for the PNP in 2007 would have cemented the idea that 'the people love me' firmly in her mind, and she would have tried to emulate every failed policy that had been a throwback to the turbulent 1970s. A win for the PNP in 2007 would have been good for the PNP leader. It would have been even better for those who went on a shredding-of-documents mission after the JLP win on September 3.
What about the death penalty?
In the last 11 years, I have wavered on capital punishment, behaving like a yo-yo in instances. Let me state that I am not one of those who believe that the death penalty is a deterrent to a runaway murder rate. For me, a man who leaves his house by night to rape and murder another human being, or one who kills another after holding him up at gunpoint, both deserve to die.
In a perverse way, the relatives of the victim need their pound of flesh. You denied me the love of the one I loved. You took away the warmth, the smile, the frown, the burst of laughter, the embrace and you did it with glee.
You smiled as you killed the person dear to me and now that you have been caught and it has been established beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are the killer, you expect me to imprison you and to feed you for life while you still operate and plan to kill others behind bars.
Nothing irks as much as the fact that a convicted, cold-blooded murderer is being part-fed by the relatives of the victim. But why am I now wavering again?
First, if we want proof that the death penalty DOES NOT act as a deterrent to murder, all we have to do is examine not so much the records of police killings of civilians over the years, but the fact that many in the police force are judge, jury and executioner.
In other words, in Jamaica, the death penalty is not just on the books, it is very much in operation.
In 1996, the police shot and killed four young men at a house about 40 metres from the Denham Town Police Station. The police report on radio said the men were shot and injured and on arrival at the hospital, they were pronounced dead.
My investigations during the time when gun violence broke out in Tivoli, Denham Town and Rema revealed a different picture.
On the smooth concrete flooring in the house where two of the men had been killed, there were bloody drag marks. Are injured men usually dragged along the ground?
I will not bore you too much with the details because I have written at length on the matter.
To cut to the chase, my intervention at the time invited additional attention, and while a well-known talk show host along with members of the security forces toured the troubled area, a woman from the community said, 'Mi not saying dem is not gunman, but dem neva did have any gun da day deh.'
That is what moves the police to commit murder.
If two poor young men are walking in a ghetto area and they are accosted by the police, something of the sort will usually happen. The police vehicle stops and three or four of them rush out. To the men they shout, "Go over the wall deh so, bway!"
The boys go against the wall. Routinely they are slapped on the sides of the face or rammed in the sides with rifles. "Whey unnu a go? Whey unnu a come from? Whey de gun deh, bway?" Some slaps again.
In searching one, a gun is found. It is quite possible, though not likely, that his friend knows nothing about the gun. As the gun is taken away the boys begin to cry. The police use their guns to pummel them, in the sides, on the legs.
Then the policemen back away while the boys sense the death coming. They begin to shout, "Murder, murder!" The police give themselves more distance. The boys are begging as they try to blend into the hard concrete of the wall.
The first burst of gunfire nearly cuts one in two. The others open up and in seconds the two boys are dead. That is standard operational procedure when a gun is found.
Now, I am not saying that there are not some vicious animals in our environment, because there are too many, bred by years of social neglect, political machinations and governmental mismanagement.
Anyone who makes out that what I say is isolated, is living a lie. But, and here is where the real problem lies, what is a policeman to do if he knows that a young man is a cold-blooded killer? Must he wait until he catches him in the act?
The art of good detective work has become a thing of the past because so much of it, especially where it involves murder and residents of the inner-city communities, can be solved by the police murdering the murderers.
Said a police superintendent to me recently, "What must we do? We take then in and if they have connections, especially in the drug underworld, they are out again on bail murdering again!'
The JLP has committed itself to putting some teeth back into the death penalty. Just watch those concerned as they try to back-pedal on this one. All polls have consistently shown that the vast majority of our people are in favour of the noose swinging again.
The JLP Government will have to answer the call. Who will speak for those who had no guns, no ammunition but who fell on the wrong side of a murderous, rogue cop?
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