Bunting's unsteady relationship with the PNP

[Sir X]

Bunting's unsteady relationship with the PNP
Man in the news

Sunday, June 21, 2009
Peter Bunting's relationship with the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) can, at best, be described as unsettled.
In December 1994, for instance, when he resigned as parliamentary secretary for health in the PNP Government led by P J Patterson, Bunting had expressed frustration at his inability to encourage systems of accountability and greater openness in government among traditionalist colleagues.
Peter Bunting (centre) has a laugh with Portia Simpson Miller and Howard Aries at the People's National Party's (PNP's) 67th annual conference in September 2006. At the time Bunting supported Dr Omar Davies's bid for the leadership of the party. That race was won by Simpson Miller who today is still president of the PNP. (Photo: Observer library)
At the time, Bunting had told Patterson that the best contribution he (Bunting) could make was to concentrate on the process of constitutional reform and on his South-East Clarendon constituency, which he had won from the veteran politician Hugh Shearer in the 1993 general elections.
But a source close to the PNP told the Observer at the time that Bunting "was on a crusade and just felt that he wasn't getting anywhere".
At the time, the 33-year-old Bunting was among a new bunch of politicians who had called for the modernisation of the Government, making proposals such as giving ministries definable targets and judging their performance against the targets.
In fact, his suggestion that the agriculture ministry should be revamped to deal with the issues that were likely to arise in the global economy angered the then agriculture minister.
Bunting also annoyed older politicians by questioning the demand for junior ministers, such as himself, to subscribe to the concept of collective responsibility when they were not part of the process of decision-making.
"Peter kept raising this issue of responsibility without authority and it would be discussed but not really get anywhere," a PNP insider revealed at the time.
Party insiders said then that the young politician was expected to advocate reform of the political and government systems from within the councils of the PNP and from the parliamentary back benches.
But Bunting eventually returned to his private business and never contested the 1997 general elections, leaving the seat to Basil Burrell, who again won it for the PNP by 54 votes over the Jamaica Labour Party's Edwin Singh.
The Government, though, recognising the young investment banker's business acumen, appointed him chair of the National Water Commission (NWC) in January 1998. After all, Bunting, by then, had had a dazzling career in the financial sector at Citibank, before helping to start Manufacturers Merchant Bank. He served as president of the National Investment Bank of Jamaica before joining with colleague businessmen Christopher Dehring and Mark Golding to form investment brokerage house Dehring Bunting and Golding (DB&G).
Under his chairmanship a record number of water supply projects were undertaken by the NWC and more than 300 communities received water for the first time.
However, in December 2001 Bunting resigned the NWC chair, saying that he wanted to give more time to DB&G.
But even as he placed more focus on his successful brokerage house, Bunting never stayed far away from politics, and in 2006 he supported Dr Omar Davies's bid for the leadership of the PNP.
Davies, Dr Peter Phillips, Dr Karl Blythe and Portia Simpson Miller contested the vacancy created by Patterson's decision to retire.
The battle, won by Simpson Miller, proved bruising and created deep divisions in the party that have still not yet been closed.
By May 2007, Bunting, who in an interview with the Business Observer in 2003 admitted that he was "at heart a public servant", was headed back to representational politics. At the time, he told the Observer that after 18 years in power, the PNP needed to reinvent itself and hopefully he could be part of that.
"With my background in finance, I would like to see the Government make more business-like decisions and display management competence and political ability," he said. "We need to see new ideas come to the fore, more particularly in the governance of Jamaica," he added.
Four months later in the general elections, he beat the JLP's Sally Porteous 8,453 to 8,338 votes to take the Manchester Central seat. The defeat was particularly crushing for Porteous as she had been working in the constituency for years. Bunting entered the race as the replacement for Vando Palmer who had fallen out of favour with the PNP hierarchy.
The PNP's perception of Bunting's value as a candidate was undoubtedly boosted after he and his partners improved their personal financial stocks by selling 68 per cent of DB&G to Scotiabank in December 2006.
At the time of the sale, DB&G was the largest equity broker in the country, reporting total assets of $31 billion for the financial year ending March 31, 2006 and funds under management of $33 billion as at June 30, 2006.
But the PNP lost the parliamentary elections as well as the local government poll that followed. Bunting, by then the Opposition spokesman on industry and commerce, was elected general secretary of the party in January 2008. Later that year he had to referee another divisive contest for the presidency of the PNP as Phillips failed in his bid to unseat Simpson Miller.
Still reeling from losses in the general and parish council elections as well as internal divisions, the PNP went into campaign mode for the court-ordered by-election for the West Portland seat in March this year.
The PNP's Kenneth Rowe lost that election to the JLP's Daryl Vaz by more than 2,000 votes, adding more fuel to criticisms of Bunting within the party, as some members accused him of not showing aggression in the campaign.
"The general secretary doesn't have a clue," one PNP insider told this newspaper in the lead-up to the West Portland election as he sought to inject energy into what was considered a weak campaign.
The criticisms grew louder after last Tuesday's by-election for the North-East St Catherine seat which the JLP's Gregory Mair won comfortably over the PNP's Granville Valentine.
By Wednesday evening, Bunting was in the news, having posted on his Facebook page a famous quote by Albert Einstein - "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
The posting generated huge response and was regarded by some Simpson Miller loyalists as a criticism of her leadership.
The following morning, RJR News reported that Bunting had removed the quote overnight and replaced it with one that read: "A genuine leader is not a searcher of consensus but a moulder of consensus".
According to RJR, the second quote was widely believed to be a swipe at Simpson Miller.
Later that day, Bunting removed the controversial quote from his Facebook page and posted a response to the brouhaha.
"I'm surprised at the attention being given by the media during the last 24.
hours to two quotes - by Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King Jr respectively - which I posted on my individual Facebook page without any personal comment," he wrote. "In fact, the second of these quotes I originally posted as far back as October 2008. Some reports have sought to interpret this as an attack on the party leader; let me state unequivocally that this was not my intention.
"These posts also attracted many comments, which I generally welcome as I believe that different ideas and opinions should contend. However, a few of the comments were disrespectful and offensive, and while I had no control or responsibility for those unfortunate comments, I wish to disassociate myself completely from those remarks," Bunting said.
On Friday, the Daily Observer reported that there was a move afoot in the PNP to cashier Bunting, as it was felt that he had failed to energise and recapitalise the party.
"Peter has not been the kind of general secretary that the party needs to rev the engine and to get things moving," the paper quoted one senior official who asked not to be named. "The party leader and many other members of the leadership are not pleased with his performance and work," the un-named official added.
The thinking in the party, insiders said, was that veteran politician Dr DK Duncan, who served as general secretary in the 1970s, would make a better general secretary.
But on Friday night, the PNP sought to avoid the brewing controversy, voicing support for Bunting in a release after an officers' meeting which engaged in a preliminary review of the outcome of the North-East St Catherine by election.
"In light of recent media reports, the officers reassert their confidence in the party leader, Cde Portia Simpson Miller and general secretary, Cde Peter Bunting," the release said.

[Sir X]

Problems in the PNP

Published: Sunday | June 21, 2009



File
People's National Party supporters celebrate at an election rally. The conversion of the PNP to a pliable vote-getting machine has led to the marginalisation of healthy social elements.
Don Robotham, Contributor
The defeat of the People's National Party (PNP) in the recent by-elections in North East St Catherine was entirely predictable. This defeat, the second in a row, has exposed the utter bankruptcy of the political line being followed since the loss of the 2007 general election.
The problems of the PNP go way beyond the issue of leadership. Indeed, the leadership issue is really a symptom of a deeper malaise afflicting the party as a whole, and Jamaican politics more generally, including the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Just as the JLP's problems have not really been solved by exchanging Bruce Golding for Edward Seaga, a leadership change in the PNP, which does not address the root problems, will simply be cosmetic and will not lead to a political renewal.
What is the fundamental problem which faces the PNP? There really are two. The first has to do with the absence of any fundamental values and strategic political goals; the second follows from the first and has to do with the PNP's social composition and representativeness.
The first problem actually began with the second coming of Michael Manley, but has been made especially acute by the dismal political heritage from the Patterson era. It would be untrue and foolish to claim that Mr Patterson made no positive contributions to Jamaican social, economic and cultural life. It was during his period that the horrendous 1991 inflation was tamed (at an enormous price, but tamed), and an entirely new era of expansion took place in the Jamaican tourist industry - just to take two issues. It is the Spanish hotel investment of the Patterson era which is playing a major role in saving our skin at the moment, boosting arrivals from Canada by an enormous 23.9 per cent by the end of 2008, in the face of declines in the US market.
Crucial and historic step
It is also this Spanish connection, which is beginning to open up the Latin American market - an absolutely crucial and historic step for the future of Jamaican tourism and economic development, more generally. Under Patterson, the entire sector of Jamaica was revolutionised by enormous increases in usage, and huge improvements in our transportation systems - including the proliferation of 'deportees', for which he was foolishly ridiculed in some circles. This, too, will prove to be an absolutely fundamental development for our future. But the single most important achievement of the Patterson era was not in the economic, but in the cultural-racial field. Under Patterson, blackness came to the fore in Jamaican society, to the annoyance of the usual suspects.
Where Patterson failed was in the political area, and this is haunting the PNP and the country today. Under his leadership, the party was converted to a vote-getting machine, without any clear political values or goals. Its group structure became a phantom while political education and the serious study of policy issues vanished. Even in of blackness, instead of embarking on a deep cultural remaking of Jamaican identity, the PNP simply used blackness as an excuse for cronyism and worse. Indeed, the corruption issue with which the party has become plagued and which it continues to evade, arose precisely out of this cynical manipulation of the 'black man time now' slogan.
The lumpenisation of the PNP - the JLP preceded it down that road - is connected to this organisational and political degeneration.
The conversion of the PNP into a pliable vote-getting machine required the marginalisation of the healthy social elements. Only those who were bent on holding on to State power and its gravy train would remain active in such an organisation.
The organised working class in the trade unions and the healthy parts of the middle class withdrew into private life. The uptown and downtown lumpen - wholly dependent on political handouts and bent on upward social mobility at all costs - stepped to the forefront. These two groups saw and still see control of the State as the key to their economic and social future.
Lumpen strategy
This is why it is fair to describe the post-general election strategy of the PNP as a lumpen strategy. The entire point of this strategy was to regain control of the State and its revenues by means of legal manoeuvres. Why they should be returned to power, and what they would do differently, and for whose benefit - such questions were considered irrelevant. From the point of view of the lumpen, they are indeed irrelevant. The point is to grab control of the State and to resume their parasitical life at the expense of the Jamaican people.
For the PNP to renew itself, it must clarify and renew its fundamental values and political goals. What does the party really stand for, and what does it seek to do for Jamaica? And which Jamaica? For there are several. What sort of government does it represent? How will it ensure that the lumpen are subordinated to the organised working and middle classes in its ranks? What will it do to address the corruption issues? These are not questions to be answered in the abstract, as if the party had not been in power for the past 19 years. On the contrary, for it to be taken seriously, the PNP has first to embark on that most difficult but necessary exercise - an open and comprehensive critique of its performance while in government, and all.
Only on the basis of what will undoubtedly be a painful exercise can the PNP move on to begin to address the difficult short- and long-term challenges facing Jamaica. This is especially urgent in the current context in which a very major global repositioning of the Jamaican economy will be required. Golding - a one man band - continues, in his public forums, to try to educate the Jamaican people about the really tough choices we face, not the least of which is the coming trial with the International Monetary Fund. Omar Davies began to take up some of the issues in his Budget presentation. Peter Phillips also has begun to present a broader vision with the launching of the Roxborough Institute. Portia Simpson Miller, Peter Bunting, Mark Golding and others need to jump in also and present their own perspectives to the Jamaican people. So far, both parties have barely scratched the surface of our problems and, to change the metaphor, are groping in the dark.
The greatest economic crisis since The Depression seems to be gradually subsiding in the developed economies. Nevertheless, all are agreed that any 'recovery' will be one in quotation marks. Unemployment is likely to remain stubbornly high for quite some time in the developed Western economies and economic growth anaemic, especially in Britain and the United States. A new global economic and political architecture is emerging in which China, India and Asia as a whole, as well as Latin America (primarily Brazil), are likely to play a far more central role. Excluding the Pre-Columbian period, from its very inception - for more than 500 years - the Jamaican economy and society developed entirely as an offshoot of European and American expansion.
Every single aspect of our way of life, although deeply rooted in African traditions, has been fundamentally shaped by this experience. Much of this will undoubtedly continue, but the world which is emerging will be sharply different from what we have grown accustomed to. We will have to reposition ourselves in this brave new world, if we are to survive and prosper. We will need the best efforts of our national leadership to help us face these challenges. The PNP can play the leading role in this process, but it has to dig deep to recover the critical traditions which allowed it to play this role in the past. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.

[Sir X]

The brown man wins

Published: Sunday | June 21, 2009



Martin Henry, Contributor
Let me state the obvious right at the start: In the Jamaican colour continuum from coal black to lily white, I, like Rex Nettleford, am among the blackest of Jamaicans. It is always a bit of comic theatre to hear thoroughly mongrelised people, which all Jamaicans are, defending their black credentials as if it were constantly under attack and their lives depended on it.
So a brown Jamaican man has 'beaten' a blacker area-born contender in the North East St Catherine by-election. Similarly, a brown man delivered a 'whipping' to a darker opponent in West Portland.
Gregory Mair was returned to a Parliament by a margin of 2,657 votes, 265 more than he received in the September 2007 general election, and handsomely exceeding his own projection of a 2,000, vote margin of victory, even with lower voter turnout. By any measure, this is an extraordinary performance by an incumbent member of parliament in a government with a weak majority, and 21 months into office, and presiding over an economy on its way south.
This is the big story. But media, by and large, aren't getting it. Within the space of a few hours, I, as just one public affairs analyst, received three invitations to discuss the state of the People's National Party (PNP) and why it lost the by-election. These are the times when one deeply wishes that that great and non-partisan political sociologist Carl Stone were alive and .
The real story
The real story, awaiting rigorous dissection, was how an unpopular political party, kept out of office for 18 years and barely winning a majority to form the Government, can manage to be increasing its level of support under the kinds of hostile conditions of the last 21 months. A rational reading of the matter is that voters are sticking to their decision to give the Bruce Golding-led Jamaica Lablour Party (JLP) government its fair chance at governing, as it was asked to do in September 2007, and will not be deterred by opposition cries of scandal and corruption and mismanagement.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the 70-year-old PNP, why it is losing elections, which can't be fixed by a stint in the political wilderness.
I raised in a radio discussion whether running unknown black candidates plucked at random off the streets of one of the villages of NE St Catherine and only differentiated by the colour of their would have had any significant influence on the outcome of the by-election. I don't think so. The people of NE St Catherine have voted for the parties and their leaders and, historically, on top of everything else, NE St Catherine is a JLP-dominant seat. One of Carl Stone's critical insights into our political sociology is that the whole country and the electorate behave like one big constituency.
Stone also rejected the neat but superficial classification of race and class and their linkage, in which most other scholars have taken such comfort, but which severely distorts social reality. And I follow him. There is no neat black, brown and white Jamaica with class neatly tied to colour. There is a complex, dynamic continuum of colour and class in a thoroughly creolised and mongrelised society.
And despite the trumpeted tensions, race and class harmony, by any international comparative measure, are extraordinarily good, as brown man Norman Manley advised the Philadelphia Bar Association in the racist United States in 1967. The Sri Lankans, as just one current example, have just completed a decades-old civil war pitting the minority and oppressed Tamils against the dominant Sinhalese.
Four broad socio-economic categories
Stone sensibly classified classes in the Jamaican political economy by distinctions of both income and non-material status. In 'Class, State, and Democracy in Jamaica' and an earlier paper on 'Class, Race, and Political Behaviour in Urban Jamaica', he identified four broad socio-economic categories in Jamaican social structure:
1. An upper class of capitalists (large-scale business owners and planters).
2. An upper-middle class, made up of , owners of medium-size businesses, college-level educators, corporate managers, senior bureaucrats in the public sector, and leaders of voluntary associations.
3. A lower-middle class, consisting of small-scale business owners, primary and secondary-school teachers, white-collar workers (in private , civil administration, and parastatal organisations), skilled workers, and owners of medium-size farms.
4. A lower class of small peasants, agricultural workers, labourers (unskilled and semi-skilled), and the substantial number of rural and urban unemployed (Stone, 1973).
Stone's work delineates a complicated link between class and party loyalty.
I have done some research extensively using the Handbook of Jamaica, which was published between the 1880s and the 1970s. You can literally see in the included a progressive blackening of political leadership and public administration.
Manley, addressing the Philadelphia Bar Association in 1967, told his audience: "We have a two-party system accepted and deeply entrenched ... . Jamaica is second to few, if any, countries that are seeking to solve the problems of racial integration and harmony." Manley wanted a Jamaica "where colour has ceased to have any psychological significance in society".
Psychological significance of colour
The running psychological significance of colour in Jamaica is as much a condition of the darker shades being constantly and contentiously on the colour defensive, as the lighter shades on the colour continuum projecting superiority. And reverse racism is apparently quite acceptable as compensation for wrongs suffered in the past. The colour game is a draining and counterproductive one which this blackie tuttus flatly refuses to play.
And just to note, in closing, the biggest colour licks that I have received from childhood to past 50 have been delivered by visibly black compatriots only a shade or two lighter in colour, who, in delivering them, sought to advance their standing in their own eyes. ,Martin Henry is a communications consultant who may be reached at medhen@gmail.com. Feedback may also be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.</I>