RBSC

**Baddaz** · March 29, 2009, 01:18 PM

portia simpson and her cronies have basically killed the pnp... opinion based on observation, the pnp will never win another election as long as portia simpson remains the leader of the party... she has become to the party what seaga was to the jlp - a rejected leader...

**Mosiah** · March 29, 2009, 01:22 PM

Yuh nuh see Peter Phillips has founded the Roxborough Institute, a think tank, yes another one.

Martin Henry of the Gleaner writes about this institute: We hope the new Roxborough Institute will solve the problem of financing thought, will find its own independent-thinking niche, and will produce rigorous results deli-vered in ordinary language. We hope that the results will be useful for policy and action towards social, economic, political - and even moral - transformation of a society that can't wait 20 years for normal crime and normal development.

Perhaps we don't need another think tank, but I was just wondering - what kind of a think tank could Portia found, much less be a part of?

**Mosiah** · March 29, 2009, 01:23 PM

Exactly! Her election defeats are mounting and will soon pass Eddie's. History is a topic she clearly walks far from.

**Baddaz** · March 29, 2009, 01:32 PM

portia simpson is waaaaaaaay out of her league... she is an embarassment to the party...

mention think tank to portia and she would be asking a wha dat, yuh mean mean stink tank... she has to go to allow the party to regain some relevance and move forward...

**Assasin** · March 29, 2009, 02:33 PM

good move by Phillips?

What is wrong with having another think thank? There is so many areas of Jamaica which is not studied and preserved. Too often we dismiss researched work for what sound good.

And yes I would feel comfortable with Phillips if he can reign in some of the people in the PNP and provide some leadership.

**Gamma** · March 29, 2009, 03:55 PM

unnuh a court jawge and karls ire? tan deh!!!

**Jawge** · March 30, 2009, 02:32 PM

I guess this article isn't
of interest: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/glean...ead/lead7.html I know it doesn't fit with your agenda. I will say more later.

**Willi** · March 30, 2009, 03:54 PM

Nope.

Its making excuses everywhere, but with the party itself.

**Gamma** · March 30, 2009, 05:38 PM

consider the source. anyway it repeats what are known to be the ills it is the rationalization that is found wanting.

**Baddaz** · March 30, 2009, 09:32 PM

the article basically says what i and many have been saying... portia simpson as the leader is incompetent, ineffective and not fit to be the leader of the party... imagine in a by election that should have been close considering the economic climate,

PNP president Portia Simpson Miller hardly missed a day in the constituency, but Rowe lost by over 2,000 votes. Rowe polled 5,626 to Vaz's 7,915

there is more that could be said but why beat a dying horse...

**Jawge** · March 30, 2009, 10:57 PM

Please point out in the
article that I posted; where the quote below was said:
"portia simpson as the leader is incompetent, ineffective and not fit to be the leader of the party..."

**Baddaz** · March 30, 2009, 11:34 PM

jawge, it is there if you want to see it...

**Willi** · March 31, 2009, 03:39 AM

It's time for Portia to step down
WIGNALL'S WORLD
Mark Wignall
Sunday, March 29, 2009

MUCH of what the electorate uses to define Portia Simpson Miller is urban legend, fairytale. In politics however, a politician will accept all positives, especially when those defining the politician are not really interested in wrestling with the burden of proof.
So, if over the years her South West St Andrew constituency remains the most economically dilapidated of all 60 constituencies islandwide with staggering levels of unemployment and too high a culture of gunmanship, but she is returned time and again as its member of parliament, why should she rock a boat that is permanently attached to its moorings and is going nowhere?
One of the 'urban legends' surrounding the Opposition leader is that she loves, cares for and defends poor people more than any other MP. I happen to believe that action defines love, therefore those affecting love with a trailer-load of hugs and kisses and broad smiles are only as good as the extent to which they lift up in life the object of their desire.
With all of that excess love for the poor floating around inside of her, one would have expected her to have an array of success stories in her constituency. I am certain that like a lot of private citizens she has perhaps helped selected individuals to raise their game since the time she won South West St Andrew in 1976. As a public commentator, that is not my concern. As a public figure on the public's payroll, Portia Simpson Miller has a duty to build up the physical infrastructure of her constituency and to lift the social and economic life of her constituents.
That is palpably absent.
In 1980 when the highest general election turnout (89 per cent) in our political history occurred and the JLP just about wiped out the PNP in seats and the popular vote, Portia's South West St Andrew constituency had a turnout of 105 per cent. But I need to be fair to her and say that she was not the only one. As high as the 94 per cent turnout was in the JLP's Eddie Seaga's West Kingston constituency, Portia's mentor, the late former PNP Housing Minister Tony Spaulding, a man who seemed to be quite comfortable with the type of politics practised then had a higher turnout of 102 per cent in his South St Andrew constituency, next door to his student.
It was a case of Spaulding teaching her too well, plus it seemed that on that election day, either dead people voted, ballot boxes were commandeered and stuffed or, more likely, with the two constituencies beside each other, cross-border voting occurred in the broken-down system we had then.
Simpson Miller. member of parliament of South West St Andrew
Presently, Simpson Miller's constituency votes more 'garrisonised' than any of the 60 constituencies. In the 2007 general elections she scored again, PNP 94 per cent, JLP six per cent.
By comparison, her recent rival for presidency of the PNP, Peter Phillips scored PNP 62 per cent (JLP 38 per cent) in his St Andrew East Central constituency while Bruce Golding scored JLP 87 per cent (PNP 13 per cent) in his Western Kingston stronghold.
The Portia factor is fizzling out
Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller, the piece of the PNP loyal to her, the PNP youth and the PNP orange-coloured folk had taken up board and lodging in West Portland for the entire three weeks of the short campaign.
Diehard comrades have been saying that the entire JLP was also in the constituency during the same period. Not so.
The JLP Cabinet is made up of too many men staring old age in the face who can hardly manage a one-week election campaign. From my understanding, the 'oldsters' showed up in the last week and were more green 'window dressing' than any real factor that could have contributed to the severe beating handed to the PNP.
The much-touted Don Anderson polls which were used to determine the direction of the PNP's campaign strategy must have either been misunderstood by the party or the polls were just way off the mark. Don Anderson is quite capable of defending his work.
First, whether or not a PNP candidate was available, a match-up question between Vaz and Dabdoub would have had to be there and, like my own findings, it would have shown the huge gap between Vaz and a hapless Dabdoub. Second, Anderson was correct to seek data which would inform him of the West Portlanders' view of national matters. That would have been important in order to define how much of the PNP's campaigning would be targeted towards those matters as against local matters.
Third, a pollster can provide research findings but he cannot tell a political party hampered by internal divisions, an increasingly weakened leader, an inability to source and secure funds and a Secretariat fooling itself about how to get out the votes on election day.
It is my belief that the remnants of a financially broke PNP allowed itself to be sucked into the same rubbish 'Portia Aura' as obtained in the September 2007 general elections. The PNP leader and the sorely disillusioned general secretary, Peter Bunting - said to be the new face of the PNP's future - either totally misread the findings which were readily available on the ground in West Portland (and which I picked up) or they decided to con themselves after sensing the Vaz juggernaut about to steamroll over the PNP.
But let us agree with the PNP that the vote in West Portland was, for them, a referendum on the JLP's stewardship. With the squashing of Kenneth Rowe and the PNP last Monday with a 72 per cent turnout (not 76 per cent as I had previously stated), what political alternatives are left for the PNP? Only one.
The PNP leader, Portia Simpson Miller, must begin to psych herself into making an exit before the losses the PNP will face in the other three 'dual citizenship seats force open the exit door for her.
Certainly in that Don Anderson poll there must have been a question or two which sought to determine how West Portlanders assimilated the whole issue of dual citizenship. If there was such a finding it would have told the PNP that it is flying off into its own imaginings. Those findings, as mine have indicated, would have told the PNP that most Jamaicans favour those who care tangibly about them and that those who are chasing down dual citizens and issuing auto-da-fés as if we are in the grips of a political inquisition will indeed be hurt when next they head to the polls.
It is all about raw power and the refusal of the PNP to wash from its mind the reality of September 2007. Portia Simpson Miller has begun to believe her own myth.
Kudos to Bobby Montague
Nothing wins at the polls like performance and nothing is more invaluable in politics than the team leader behind the candidate.
As campaign manager for Daryl Vaz in the West Portland by-election, Montague, state minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Local Government Reform, took home his candidate in as fine a style as one could ever hope for.
I remember a few years ago when Hyacinth Knight was JLP caretaker for Western St Mary and when the brilliant Montague was making his political ascendancy, I was invited to a schoolroom meeting at Carron Hall where he was the councillor. It was there that I discovered the real Bobby Montague.
In a hall packed with constituents, Montague in his speech was able to relate to almost every person there, calling their names, even making references to their relatives: "Miss Cilda, when you walk down bottom road and it cut way pon yu, how yu gwine get fi go a shop an' buy food fi yu four kids dem?"
It was not so much his ability to spin his way into their hearts but one sensed that he wanted to make a mark on that constituency and change the life of its residents, plus he had the ability to relate to them in a language that appealed to them. I, a visitor, was mesmerised.
Since his entry into representational politics in March 1990, he has quietly made his mark on the JLP and Jamaica. In unseating a sitting councillor in an election that the then governing PNP had won, he defied the odds and popular opinion. After that he moved in 1998 from being the lone JLP councillor in St Mary to being mayor in 2003. In the 2003 local government elections he won for the JLP eight seats out of 13 divisions, this again after then party leader Eddie Seaga and deputy leader Olivia Babsy Grange had clearly decided that the St Mary boys could not make it and the party would not waste its money to help them.
Then in 2007 he ripped the PNP to shreds and took two seats out of three in the general elections. But Montague was not done yet. Like a general in the field, he almost wiped out the PNP in the local elections, making it 10 to three and taking three out of four seats in Central St Mary - said then to be the PNP's last stand. But it is internally that Bobby Montague has really made his name. Highly respected by party leader Bruce Golding, some of the old guard in hushed tones have even suggested that Golding is grooming him for greater things. Grudgingly though, they admit that he seems to be the 'real deal'.
One has even said to me that for a young man with no post or position in the party he is like another Hugh Shearer, a major force to be reckoned with, and like Daryl Vaz, everyone in the JLP knows he is extremely loyal to Bruce Golding and fiercely defends him every chance he gets. I gather that some among the old guard refers to him as 'the other Golding'.
To really appreciate Montague, we have to go back a little in time. Bobby Montague was chosen to manage the late Dr Percy Broderick's run for deputy chairman against Seaga loyalist Dorothy Lightbourne. Broderick won. Then he managed the campaign for Karl Samuda, Montague's mentor, to be general secretary. Samuda won.
Don Creary and Andre Franklyn wanted to be deputy general secretary. They were his friends and fellow young turks and so they got their posts.
Then James Robertson challenged Babsy Grange. Many have said that that campaign was inspired by Montague. Robertson won and he is still deputy leader in charge of the most successful JLP division. That deputy leader campaign was the event that really put Bobby Montague out in the public eye as a major political force.
When Golding was to be party chairman, again Montague was an integral part of that 'contest', but it quickly became a no contest against the late JLP stalwart Ryan Peralto.
When Bruce Golding was dilly-dallying to be JLP party leader, he was pushed, prodded and eventually had a no-contest against another JLP stalwart, Pearnel Charles.
In the West Portland by-election, Montague used it to stamp his class on the history books.
Some insiders tell me that Montague had taken his friend and colleague Daryl Vaz as his personal project long before the by-election. Vaz actually endorsed that sentiment shortly after the 2007 general election.
As campaign manager it was Montague who guided the juggernaut Vaz, stood with him, and together they pulled off a spectacular campaign and win.
Insiders are still shell-shocked at how Montague and Samuda worked together and delivered the largest victory and margin in West Portland's history. It is interesting to note than in 1980 when West Portland had a 89 per cent turnout and the JLP was at the height of its power, the JLP got 1,000 less votes than Vaz got last Monday.
What some may ask is what is in store for this St Mary man who speaks to the people, not down to them. Is he being anointed by Golding and Samuda, as some are saying, for greater things?
Think about this: For a man without any post in the party to be appointed campaign manager in a by-election that would determine the immediate future of the government and his prime ministership, Golding gambled on Bobby Montague's ability to bring home 'the Vaz' intact. For a veteran like Samuda to agree to play a support role there had to have been a lot of respect for and confidence in Montague.
Jamaicans are not at this time in love with our politicians, but I am putting it to you reader that Montague is a part of our future political leadership.
He is a man to watch.
Peter Bunting owes the JLP an apology
In the two unfortunate and tragic incidents which took place in West Portland just days before the by-election, the PNP's general secretary Peter Bunting, his deputy general secretary, Julian Robinson and another comrade whose name escapes me now took to the airwaves and declared that the miscreants were affiliated to the JLP.
Bunting is said to be the future of the PNP, but on radio he sounded like the echo of a past politics which we all were eager to place behind us. What was amazing about Bunting's charges was that they were not supported by police statements.
In the first instance, the police shot and killed two men travelling in a motor car in Buff Bay. Bunting was first off the mark to declare that the men were JLP activists and were dressed in green shirts. The police could not corroborate that.
In the second instance, a man's house was destroyed by fire. The PNP talking heads in the secretariat were again the first to declare the man a PNP activist and the fire, arson. Again, no corroboration from the police or the fire department.
Mr Bunting must do the decent thing and apologise.
observemark@gmail.com

**Gamma** · March 31, 2009, 06:21 AM

big IF.....big big IF

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