Tweet
One-Don 'prophet' ... and a buckling Bruce
Published: Sunday | October 17, 2010
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
Bruce Golding told Parliament last week that a commission of enquiry into the extradition request for Christopher 'Dudus' Coke will be forthcoming. Speculators promptly pointed to the declaration as the precursor to Golding's last hurrah. But Golding has always had an amazing way of either charming or infuriating Jamaicans.
He has also demonstrated with remarkable adroitness that he is a politician with a multiplicity of lives as he has risen from the seeming political grave time and time again.
But if the words of his one-time mentor, Edward Seaga, are anything to go by, Golding's mind is, at best, quite malleable.
Seaga's characterisation of Golding after he split with the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) seems quite prophetic.
The former JLP leader asserted that Golding is easily influenced, evident in his inability to make up his mind.
Now, as Golding's political life is played out like a suspense drama, Seaga's words are taking a mysteriously prophetic flavour.
Pressure from inside and outside of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has been on Golding over the past year, and the entire Jamaica is now watching to see his next move.
The question from the lips of many watching from both sides of the political divide is whether Golding has now hammered the final nail into his coffin with his decision to set up a commission of enquiry into the Dudus-Manatt affair.
But with Bruce Golding, one can never be sure.
Golding has, what appears to be, a tendency to capitulate under pressure, only to resurface unexpectedly.
His charm oozed as he wooed Jamaicans with a new brand of political rhetoric that persons found endearing in the 1990s after he walked away from the JLP.
A sizeable chunk of the electorate was charmed when Golding's smooth tongue declared in sanctified tones that he had turned his back on garrison politics.
He resigned as chairman of the JLP before finally cutting ties with the party in the heat of a failed coup of sorts to get rid of Seaga in 1995.
Labourites groaned when he stepped away from the party and took an ample portion of the JLP's support with him.
Many in the hierarchy of the JLP accused Golding of conspiring with the western dissidents to oust the party's leader.
Seaga, Golding's predecessor and erstwhile guide, had all but anointed him as his successor at a function which was held to celebrate Seaga's 30th anniversary in representative politics at the Jamaica Conference Centre.
In later years, Seaga would change his mind before Golding split.
Their relationship became frosty when Golding returned to the JLP in 2002 and remains on ice even today.
Backtrack to 1972
Golding had a golden start to his political career, defeating the People's National Party's (PNP) Prince Golding in the Western St Catherine seat in 1972 at the tender age of 24.
Western St Catherine was the seat of his father, Tacious Golding, the first Speaker of the House of Representatives in post-independent Jamaica.
Bruce Golding's fortunes turned in 1976 when St Catherine was reconfigured and he was defeated by the PNP's Ruddy Lawson in the new South West St Catherine constituency.
He was not on the JLP slate when the party swept the 1980 general election, but he was given the housing ministry position through the Senate.
Golding was handed the Central St Catherine seat in the uncontested 1993 general election, and made it his domain while earning considerable criticism for crafting a "garrison constituency".
Being Seaga's chief lieutenant, Golding was elected general secretary of the JLP.
When the JLP lost the 1980 general election, a rift developed in the party which emerged as the Gang of Five scandal.
Golding openly sided with Seaga, but many questioned whether he was a part of the early discussions which gave rise to the episode.
The Gang of Five row had barely ended when about 14 senior JLP members emerged with a vengeance, demanding that Seaga should go.
Golding was accused of conspiring with the western dissidents and shortly after resigned from the party.
The 'reformed' Golding stole the hearts of Jamaicans who longed to see a non-combative, corruption-free Jamaica.
The new darling of the media sprinted out of the JLP to form the National Democratic Movement (NDM).
Then came the 1997 general election.
The expectation was great as the big third force - the NDM - entered the fray.
But to Golding's dismay, the only accomplishment of the "new and different" third party was that it deprived Golding of a seat in the House of Representatives and his old political colleagues in the JLP a well-needed election victory.
In so doing, Golding and the NDM handed the crafty P.J. Patterson and the PNP a memorable third consecutive electoral victory.
With that defeat, Golding scooted out of the NDM and took to the airwaves.
But eyes were always on Golding - waiting and watching.
The 2002 general election came. It appeared to be an open race - between the PNP and the JLP.
The NDM had by then faded into the background, a vague picture of the vibrant party that Golding, with his rich rhetoric, had introduced to Jamaicans with fanfare and hope.
Golding was out in the cold, but there were feverish whispers that he was about to return to his old party.
Desperate for an election victory, Labourites - some with jaundiced eyes, others with apprehension, and still others who were strangely ecstatic - embraced Golding as he returned to the fold.
Notwithstanding Golding's return, Patterson and the PNP carved out yet another win.
Old hunting ground
But Golding was back to his old hunting ground, and Seaga was once again the target.
As it was in the classic novel Animal Farm when Napoleon created a gang of young animals to fight his battle and remove Snowball, so it was in the JLP when a gang of Young Turks emerged.
Seaga's days were numbered.
After 31 years at the helm, Seaga made way for Bruce Golding in 2005, even as the rival PNP prepared to usher in a new president.
That happened the following year with the emergence of the immensely popular Portia Simpson Miller.
But if Simpson Miller was popular, Golding's tongue was smooth and his voice saccharine.
The electorate found it hard to make a choice.
The slim margin of victory in the 2007 general election served as testimony to the closeness of the fight - which ended 32-28 in favour of the JLP.
Naturally, the magisterial recounts were lengthy, but that was nothing compared to the dual-citizenship court battles.
Even as those raged, Golding was confronted with an extradition request from the United States.
The powerhouse wanted none other than Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, the strongman out of the JLP nerve centre Tivoli Gardens.
Golding resisted, and another dimension was added to the equation: the US law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.
The to and fro inside and outside of Parliament was intense, and Golding capitulated.
After claiming that he knew little or nothing about Manatt, a seemingly combative Golding told Parliament that he had sanctioned talks with the law firm.
An incensed nation called for Golding's head.
Under pressure, he offered to call it a day.
Golding apologised profusely and his party backed him, demanding that he remain as leader and prime minister.
Golding also told an apprehensive nation that Dudus would be extradited.
Blood was shed and Kingston was locked down in the bid to nab Dudus, but still, the Manatt mess stayed with Golding.
Since then, a slew of messy emails, fighting in the JLP, and even a lawsuit between him and Harold Brady, the attorney who was integral to the talks with Manatt, have served to muddy the waters.
In the midst of it all, the calls for a commission of enquiry were thunderous. Again, Golding capitulated.
