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Prime Minister Golding has painted himself into a corner
WIGNALL'S WORLD
Mark Wignall
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Unlike any other person in the leadership rungs of both the JLP and the PNP, Prime Minister Golding had set himself apart the very moment he turned his back on JLP politics in 1995 and expounded on his reasons for doing so in the 1997 joint JBC/RJR programme called The Politics of Crime.
The big problem is, having watched him walk away from the JLP in 1995, rejoin it in 2002, become its leader in 2005 and prime minister in 2007, we are left to struggle with the Freudian acrobatics, the personality clashes and the nagging question: Which version of Golding is the present one?
One reader e-mailed me last Thursday very annoyed, clearly expressing his conviction that the prime minister is more a concoction of some in the media, including myself.
"In your column today you suggest that Jamaica presents difficulties to manage. Wrong! That is why there are managers with different experiences and capabilities. The trick is to select the most capable manager. We have not realised this fact in Jamaica so we continue to employ managers (leaders) without the requisite capacities/résumés. We then cringe when the outcomes are far removed from what we expect.
"Yesterday on Nationwide I heard you wax lyrical on your conviction regarding Prime Minister Golding's ability to demonstrate the requisite leadership capacity to act decisively to change the direction of governance in Jamaica. What in his background or experience would lead you to be so convinced about this?
GOLDING... if it falls to him to send home about 25,000 civil servants between now and the beginning of the next fiscal year (March 2010) or later down in the year, he can kiss his political and electoral hopes goodbye
"I suggest that in your future writings you offer us some insight into what makes you so convinced. From where some of us stand, he possesses none of these abilities other than the skill of oratory to tell us what problems we are facing (which he helped create).
"I guess he thinks we are so dumb not to be able to establish this on our own account. Mark, his résumé is still stuck in the mire of the excesses of the seventies. Help us, Mark. Help us to be convinced as you are."
In that Politics of Crime programme on which he appeared, along with then Prime Minister PJ Patterson and Opposition Leader Eddie Seaga, a big con job was pulled on us, the hapless viewers.
Golding, who was in the best possible state of political limbo then - he was president of the National Democratic Movement, a third party which threatened volcanic power but eventually went soft like crackers cooked with steamed fish - presented his newness by ripping into the tribal nature of our traditional PNP/JLP politics and its criminal links.
As he spoke about constitutional reform including separation of powers, proportional representation and the first destructive evil of our politics, the growth and flowering of garrison politics, Eddie Seaga brushed it aside as "people sharing common interests" while Patterson said that he knew little about it as the constituency he represented, very rural and in the western side of the island, was no garrison. On that programme, PNP and JLP were united in their efforts to squash the political upstart, the turncoat Golding and to play 'speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil'.
If my memory serves me right, as the programme ended, Patterson and Seaga shook hands behind a lonely Bruce Golding.
Is Golding more mirage than reality?
One of the criticisms of Golding that has been gaining traction is that he seems to be, in his governance, deliberately setting the stages for his ultimate exit. In other words, he is prime minister but unwillingly so.
People like me who wanted to believe that as the political leader who, publicly at any rate, assigned himself the task of looking at our political arrangements from many angles - he stepped away, looked on from the outside for the first time at what he had described as the 'elite club' (the JLP/PNP nexus), gave critical analyses of the rot and suggested a political reformation of sorts - there was much more to him than just a 'leader' who was unready and a vacillator, as Eddie Seaga had described him in 1995.
Bear in mind that even in the years 2003 and 2004, when there was strategic planning inside the JLP by a cohort of 'young turks' impatient with seeing the party as the perennial opposition, sources tell me that Golding was pretty much dragged screaming to the leadership throne almost to the same extent that Seaga coveted the continued presence on that throne.
In a flashback to 1995 just before he formed the NDM, I can remember writing words to the effect that Golding had "gone to the mountain" to ponder his political future, one which I suggested then was not entirely in Golding's hands because "a great wave bigger that him" was impelling him towards that very future.
If we tie that to his Nicodemus-like return to the JLP in 2002 (which also indicates unwillingness) and his struggle with accepting his role as JLP leader in 2005, we may find, somewhat shockingly and depressingly so, that in every move of political importance made by Golding, there has been an element of him being pushed to 'answer a call' that was not accompanied by a conviction on his part that was as strong as the call.
The early conclusion is that if Golding is really the unwilling leader as I have analysed him to be, any positives which come from such leadership is merely 'collateral damage', simply because the leadership, by its lack of that much-needed zeal and determination, was never on the same page as the rest of us who saw too much promise in Golding.
Joseph Hibbert must go quietly
If political hypocrisy was an expensive commodity, the PNP would be rolling in riches.
Living in a house whose glass walls are as thin and brittle as they could ever be, the PNP has been adding its voice to the chorus of those throwing stones at the Government by calling on embattled JLP MP Joseph Hibbert to resign his parliamentary seat.
Now I agree that Hibbert -not found guilty of any crimes but facing serious and pointed accusations, especially via a report from the Office of the Contractor General - should resign. My reason for saying this is simple.
In the JLP manifesto which attended the election campaign, political corruption was high on its agenda and Golding has been very strident on it. By that reasoning the prime minister cannot afford to be halfway in and halfway out. At the same time, the opposition PNP cannot expect the prime minister to suspend all concerns for his political flank by taking the moral high road while the PNP continues to wallow in its own political immorality.
In previous columns I had called on PNP MP Kern Spencer (now before the courts on corruption charges) to resign. That did not happen.
On that Nationwide programme last Wednesday, Professor Trevor Munroe suggested that Hibbert should resign and Spencer should resign just as PNP MP Ronnie Thwaites did in 2002 in response to a column I had written then.
There are important differences in the Thwaites resignation and the Spencer and Hibbert cases. With Thwaites, there was little question as to what had actually taken place. Nothing was pending and based on how the matter was skilfully handled by those concerned, that is, the Postal Corporation of Jamaica, NCB and Thwaites himself who had made full restitution - although the matter had avoided the justice system - the embarrassment was too much for the party.
We should also be aware that an election campaign was on in 2002 and there was never going to be a serious political/electoral fallout from the Thwaites resignation because the particular seat was a safe PNP one.
In the present situation, the PNP wants Hibbert to go but it is unwilling to apply the same standards to its own judgement on Spencer.
The reality is, whatever it was that Hibbert was supposed to have done, or not done, happened while he was employed as an engineer to the Ministry of Works in the last PNP administration. The irony is, because Bruce Golding spent the first year after the September 2007 win tinkering with the 'novelty' of government, having spent 18 and a half years in opposition preparing for the role, the minuscule political capital he had has been squandered and now his administration is fair game for all critics. Now all the electorate is willing to see is a Joe Hibbert, JLP MP in problems and they want him to resign.
If Golding had not pussyfooted in that first year and fumbled in the second one but had instead laid it on the line and had been more open with us, more people would be willing to give his administration and his own efforts the benefit of the doubt. As it is now, few people care to consider anything coming from the Government worthwhile to believe in, even though they know that more bad news is on the horizon.
Golding has missed that window of political opportunity at seemingly all-important junctures in his prime ministership. Once lost, it takes on a slide which only speeds up the endgame of the JLP administration.
Will he find the political fortitude to fire Hibbert even as that will further destroy his electoral chances at the next elections? And if he decides to hold his political end and play for time with the Hibbert matter, what sort of criticism can an increasingly strident PNP make while its own glass house is just as breakable?
Sending home civil servants will make him lose the next election
Days prior to Golding making his after-midnight confession, certain members of the Government had determined that the PNP was planning a filibuster of sorts in the House which would drag out the 'debates' and push Golding's important presentation to the after-hours crowd.
With all of that, the Government entered the fray weakened as the PNP opposition led it around the mulberry bush and laughed at it.
In the end, the prime minister laid it on, or nearly so, by signalling that large chunks of the civil service will have to be sent home. With no money to pay redundancy Golding has left us hanging again, guessing as to how he will weave his way through that complex and pressing process.
He has also only hinted at tax reforms, suggesting that he will be going after those high rollers who have been living the best of both worlds.
If it falls to Golding to send home about 25,000 civil servants between now and the beginning of the next fiscal year (March 2010) or later down in the year, he can kiss his political and electoral hopes goodbye. Certainly Golding the politician has to answer to his MPs, Cabinet and activist supporters who will not ever buy into the reality that their political leader is deliberately consigning them to one term only.
It is a guess on my part that if Golding is more a mirage than the real deal, he will continue to fumble as he has in the previous two years. If he decides that the options are few, and from some strange and, to date, unknown place he can summon the political strength of purpose to lead to his certain one-term end, history will be kind to him if he makes all of the unpleasant but necessary changes that are being called for under the IMF agreement.
My only problem is, if he starts the process of streamlining the Government and setting the changes in motion to make us face the fact that we have to fit into whatever suit we have and not what we can borrow as always, the pressure from his colleagues is likely to bring about serious internal dissent and the JLP could implode.
I still need to believe that he possesses that leadership effectiveness even to manage his own political demise. The question is: Who do we turn over the country to in the next three years? The same old PNP with the same old leadership? We are in a royal pickle.
Homosexual lobby overstepping its bounds
"Among the items on the list of demands the gay rights lobbyists put forward was that Buju think about making statements in Jamaica calling for love toward gays; donate to the JFLAG group; hold a town hall meeting in Kingston about the need to respect gays and sing about loving gay people. All the suggestions were rejected by Buju, which is said to have infuriated the lobbyists present."
The above is an extract from an Observer article which spoke to DJ Buju Banton's recent meeting with a powerful gay lobby group.
What was that again? ".making statements in Jamaica calling for love toward gays; donate to the JFLAG group; hold a town hall meeting in Kingston about the need to respect gays and sing about loving gay people." Am I seeing correctly?
I will admit that I do not listen to Buju Banton's music because his voice 'grits' me the wrong way. But it is obvious that he has quite a large fan base. We are told that when he was 18 years old, he did Boom Bye Bye, a song which spoke about our culture of dislike for male homosexuality but which also suggested that homosexuals should be shot in the head.
We are also told that Buju Banton does not perform the song on his overseas tours. That said, the so-called gay lobby wants Banton to spend the rest of his life not just apologising to them, but to actively endorse the homosexual lifestyle in his songs.
Are these people sane? Years ago I received a call from JFLAG inviting me to a gay seminar to give a presentation. The conversation went something like this.
JFLAG: "My name is Steve and I would like to know if you could address our group in an upcoming gathering."
Me: (laughing) "Why would you want to hear from me? I don't support your lifestyle and I have written a few articles condemning the aggressiveness of the gay lobby."
JFLAG: "Well, we will be wanting to hear from people like yourself."
Obviously I did not go. If male homosexuals want to live their lives in peace, there are certain realities they have to face up to. Our culture is virulently anti-gay, plus we are a naturally violent people. That said, the vast majority of gay killings is done by gays when the relationship sours.
While I have serious problems with DJs who, unsolicited, invite hate on gays from the stage, I have to be cognisant of the educational, social and cultural realities of our people from whom DJs spring.
Banton is under pressure and the homosexual lobby wants him to hold its hand and sing, 'We're all in this thing together.' They want him to kiss and make up.
This is the epitome of a great culture clash with an added imperious schooling of the Jamaican DJ by those who believe they are more socially advanced than he is, than we are.
Buju, chose your path carefully and decide if bending over to these activists/social extortionists will be worth the extra dollar.
observemark@gmail.com
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...O_A_CORNER.asp
WIGNALL'S WORLD
Mark Wignall
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Unlike any other person in the leadership rungs of both the JLP and the PNP, Prime Minister Golding had set himself apart the very moment he turned his back on JLP politics in 1995 and expounded on his reasons for doing so in the 1997 joint JBC/RJR programme called The Politics of Crime.
The big problem is, having watched him walk away from the JLP in 1995, rejoin it in 2002, become its leader in 2005 and prime minister in 2007, we are left to struggle with the Freudian acrobatics, the personality clashes and the nagging question: Which version of Golding is the present one?
One reader e-mailed me last Thursday very annoyed, clearly expressing his conviction that the prime minister is more a concoction of some in the media, including myself.
"In your column today you suggest that Jamaica presents difficulties to manage. Wrong! That is why there are managers with different experiences and capabilities. The trick is to select the most capable manager. We have not realised this fact in Jamaica so we continue to employ managers (leaders) without the requisite capacities/résumés. We then cringe when the outcomes are far removed from what we expect.
"Yesterday on Nationwide I heard you wax lyrical on your conviction regarding Prime Minister Golding's ability to demonstrate the requisite leadership capacity to act decisively to change the direction of governance in Jamaica. What in his background or experience would lead you to be so convinced about this?
GOLDING... if it falls to him to send home about 25,000 civil servants between now and the beginning of the next fiscal year (March 2010) or later down in the year, he can kiss his political and electoral hopes goodbye
"I suggest that in your future writings you offer us some insight into what makes you so convinced. From where some of us stand, he possesses none of these abilities other than the skill of oratory to tell us what problems we are facing (which he helped create).
"I guess he thinks we are so dumb not to be able to establish this on our own account. Mark, his résumé is still stuck in the mire of the excesses of the seventies. Help us, Mark. Help us to be convinced as you are."
In that Politics of Crime programme on which he appeared, along with then Prime Minister PJ Patterson and Opposition Leader Eddie Seaga, a big con job was pulled on us, the hapless viewers.
Golding, who was in the best possible state of political limbo then - he was president of the National Democratic Movement, a third party which threatened volcanic power but eventually went soft like crackers cooked with steamed fish - presented his newness by ripping into the tribal nature of our traditional PNP/JLP politics and its criminal links.
As he spoke about constitutional reform including separation of powers, proportional representation and the first destructive evil of our politics, the growth and flowering of garrison politics, Eddie Seaga brushed it aside as "people sharing common interests" while Patterson said that he knew little about it as the constituency he represented, very rural and in the western side of the island, was no garrison. On that programme, PNP and JLP were united in their efforts to squash the political upstart, the turncoat Golding and to play 'speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil'.
If my memory serves me right, as the programme ended, Patterson and Seaga shook hands behind a lonely Bruce Golding.
Is Golding more mirage than reality?
One of the criticisms of Golding that has been gaining traction is that he seems to be, in his governance, deliberately setting the stages for his ultimate exit. In other words, he is prime minister but unwillingly so.
People like me who wanted to believe that as the political leader who, publicly at any rate, assigned himself the task of looking at our political arrangements from many angles - he stepped away, looked on from the outside for the first time at what he had described as the 'elite club' (the JLP/PNP nexus), gave critical analyses of the rot and suggested a political reformation of sorts - there was much more to him than just a 'leader' who was unready and a vacillator, as Eddie Seaga had described him in 1995.
Bear in mind that even in the years 2003 and 2004, when there was strategic planning inside the JLP by a cohort of 'young turks' impatient with seeing the party as the perennial opposition, sources tell me that Golding was pretty much dragged screaming to the leadership throne almost to the same extent that Seaga coveted the continued presence on that throne.
In a flashback to 1995 just before he formed the NDM, I can remember writing words to the effect that Golding had "gone to the mountain" to ponder his political future, one which I suggested then was not entirely in Golding's hands because "a great wave bigger that him" was impelling him towards that very future.
If we tie that to his Nicodemus-like return to the JLP in 2002 (which also indicates unwillingness) and his struggle with accepting his role as JLP leader in 2005, we may find, somewhat shockingly and depressingly so, that in every move of political importance made by Golding, there has been an element of him being pushed to 'answer a call' that was not accompanied by a conviction on his part that was as strong as the call.
The early conclusion is that if Golding is really the unwilling leader as I have analysed him to be, any positives which come from such leadership is merely 'collateral damage', simply because the leadership, by its lack of that much-needed zeal and determination, was never on the same page as the rest of us who saw too much promise in Golding.
Joseph Hibbert must go quietly
If political hypocrisy was an expensive commodity, the PNP would be rolling in riches.
Living in a house whose glass walls are as thin and brittle as they could ever be, the PNP has been adding its voice to the chorus of those throwing stones at the Government by calling on embattled JLP MP Joseph Hibbert to resign his parliamentary seat.
Now I agree that Hibbert -not found guilty of any crimes but facing serious and pointed accusations, especially via a report from the Office of the Contractor General - should resign. My reason for saying this is simple.
In the JLP manifesto which attended the election campaign, political corruption was high on its agenda and Golding has been very strident on it. By that reasoning the prime minister cannot afford to be halfway in and halfway out. At the same time, the opposition PNP cannot expect the prime minister to suspend all concerns for his political flank by taking the moral high road while the PNP continues to wallow in its own political immorality.
In previous columns I had called on PNP MP Kern Spencer (now before the courts on corruption charges) to resign. That did not happen.
On that Nationwide programme last Wednesday, Professor Trevor Munroe suggested that Hibbert should resign and Spencer should resign just as PNP MP Ronnie Thwaites did in 2002 in response to a column I had written then.
There are important differences in the Thwaites resignation and the Spencer and Hibbert cases. With Thwaites, there was little question as to what had actually taken place. Nothing was pending and based on how the matter was skilfully handled by those concerned, that is, the Postal Corporation of Jamaica, NCB and Thwaites himself who had made full restitution - although the matter had avoided the justice system - the embarrassment was too much for the party.
We should also be aware that an election campaign was on in 2002 and there was never going to be a serious political/electoral fallout from the Thwaites resignation because the particular seat was a safe PNP one.
In the present situation, the PNP wants Hibbert to go but it is unwilling to apply the same standards to its own judgement on Spencer.
The reality is, whatever it was that Hibbert was supposed to have done, or not done, happened while he was employed as an engineer to the Ministry of Works in the last PNP administration. The irony is, because Bruce Golding spent the first year after the September 2007 win tinkering with the 'novelty' of government, having spent 18 and a half years in opposition preparing for the role, the minuscule political capital he had has been squandered and now his administration is fair game for all critics. Now all the electorate is willing to see is a Joe Hibbert, JLP MP in problems and they want him to resign.
If Golding had not pussyfooted in that first year and fumbled in the second one but had instead laid it on the line and had been more open with us, more people would be willing to give his administration and his own efforts the benefit of the doubt. As it is now, few people care to consider anything coming from the Government worthwhile to believe in, even though they know that more bad news is on the horizon.
Golding has missed that window of political opportunity at seemingly all-important junctures in his prime ministership. Once lost, it takes on a slide which only speeds up the endgame of the JLP administration.
Will he find the political fortitude to fire Hibbert even as that will further destroy his electoral chances at the next elections? And if he decides to hold his political end and play for time with the Hibbert matter, what sort of criticism can an increasingly strident PNP make while its own glass house is just as breakable?
Sending home civil servants will make him lose the next election
Days prior to Golding making his after-midnight confession, certain members of the Government had determined that the PNP was planning a filibuster of sorts in the House which would drag out the 'debates' and push Golding's important presentation to the after-hours crowd.
With all of that, the Government entered the fray weakened as the PNP opposition led it around the mulberry bush and laughed at it.
In the end, the prime minister laid it on, or nearly so, by signalling that large chunks of the civil service will have to be sent home. With no money to pay redundancy Golding has left us hanging again, guessing as to how he will weave his way through that complex and pressing process.
He has also only hinted at tax reforms, suggesting that he will be going after those high rollers who have been living the best of both worlds.
If it falls to Golding to send home about 25,000 civil servants between now and the beginning of the next fiscal year (March 2010) or later down in the year, he can kiss his political and electoral hopes goodbye. Certainly Golding the politician has to answer to his MPs, Cabinet and activist supporters who will not ever buy into the reality that their political leader is deliberately consigning them to one term only.
It is a guess on my part that if Golding is more a mirage than the real deal, he will continue to fumble as he has in the previous two years. If he decides that the options are few, and from some strange and, to date, unknown place he can summon the political strength of purpose to lead to his certain one-term end, history will be kind to him if he makes all of the unpleasant but necessary changes that are being called for under the IMF agreement.
My only problem is, if he starts the process of streamlining the Government and setting the changes in motion to make us face the fact that we have to fit into whatever suit we have and not what we can borrow as always, the pressure from his colleagues is likely to bring about serious internal dissent and the JLP could implode.
I still need to believe that he possesses that leadership effectiveness even to manage his own political demise. The question is: Who do we turn over the country to in the next three years? The same old PNP with the same old leadership? We are in a royal pickle.
Homosexual lobby overstepping its bounds
"Among the items on the list of demands the gay rights lobbyists put forward was that Buju think about making statements in Jamaica calling for love toward gays; donate to the JFLAG group; hold a town hall meeting in Kingston about the need to respect gays and sing about loving gay people. All the suggestions were rejected by Buju, which is said to have infuriated the lobbyists present."
The above is an extract from an Observer article which spoke to DJ Buju Banton's recent meeting with a powerful gay lobby group.
What was that again? ".making statements in Jamaica calling for love toward gays; donate to the JFLAG group; hold a town hall meeting in Kingston about the need to respect gays and sing about loving gay people." Am I seeing correctly?
I will admit that I do not listen to Buju Banton's music because his voice 'grits' me the wrong way. But it is obvious that he has quite a large fan base. We are told that when he was 18 years old, he did Boom Bye Bye, a song which spoke about our culture of dislike for male homosexuality but which also suggested that homosexuals should be shot in the head.
We are also told that Buju Banton does not perform the song on his overseas tours. That said, the so-called gay lobby wants Banton to spend the rest of his life not just apologising to them, but to actively endorse the homosexual lifestyle in his songs.
Are these people sane? Years ago I received a call from JFLAG inviting me to a gay seminar to give a presentation. The conversation went something like this.
JFLAG: "My name is Steve and I would like to know if you could address our group in an upcoming gathering."
Me: (laughing) "Why would you want to hear from me? I don't support your lifestyle and I have written a few articles condemning the aggressiveness of the gay lobby."
JFLAG: "Well, we will be wanting to hear from people like yourself."
Obviously I did not go. If male homosexuals want to live their lives in peace, there are certain realities they have to face up to. Our culture is virulently anti-gay, plus we are a naturally violent people. That said, the vast majority of gay killings is done by gays when the relationship sours.
While I have serious problems with DJs who, unsolicited, invite hate on gays from the stage, I have to be cognisant of the educational, social and cultural realities of our people from whom DJs spring.
Banton is under pressure and the homosexual lobby wants him to hold its hand and sing, 'We're all in this thing together.' They want him to kiss and make up.
This is the epitome of a great culture clash with an added imperious schooling of the Jamaican DJ by those who believe they are more socially advanced than he is, than we are.
Buju, chose your path carefully and decide if bending over to these activists/social extortionists will be worth the extra dollar.
observemark@gmail.com
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...O_A_CORNER.asp
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