Anedda predikshon set to come to pass..

[Don1]

... dat is if di Labourite dem ave sense .... ...being sage is under rated fi tru

Get ready for early elections
Political analysts believe JLP will take advantage of Holness bounce
BY CONRAD HAMILTON Sunday Observer senior reporter hamiltonc@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, October 09, 2011



SOME of the country's main political analysts are suggesting that there could in fact be an early general election, contrary to their initial predictions that the next poll would follow the 2012 London Olympics and next year's observation of Jamaica's 50th anniversary of Independence.

With a barrage of surprises in recent days, highlighted by the decision by Bruce Golding to step down as prime minister and leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), as well as what is shaping up to be a smoother than expected leadership transition from Golding to Education Minister and West Central St Andrew Member of Parliament Andrew Holness, some of the commentators are conceding that conditions have changed immensely.


Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...#ixzz1aHeSOmQw

[Exile]

I doubt it....Jamaica needs a rest from elections...work to be done on voters lists, the whole process needs cleaning up...too many loopholes for outright thievery.

[Karl]

The challenges facing 'Prince Andrew'

The challenges facing 'Prince Andrew'

Claude Robinson

Sunday, October 09, 2011


POLITICIANS do politics; political parties exist to win and hold state power. Never mind the high-sounding patriotic phrases about putting country first; reality is that the majority of Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) MPs who have coalesced around Andrew Holness did so to give the party its best chance of winning the next general election.


At a press conference last week the main contenders for leadership announced they were withdrawing their names from contention and pledged their full support for the 39-year-old education minister to become prime minister and party leader.


HOLNESS… whatever we draw as lines of separation, we want to stay together as we are in this boat together




Their decision does not deny anyone else in the JLP — under the party's constitution and leadership rules — the right to be nominated for leader up to October 19 and for the 5,000 or so delegates to cast their votes at the private session of the annual conference on November 19. This could still happen and, at the time of writing, it was unclear whether party chairman and well-known maverick Mike Henry would go with the consensus or be a spoiler.

What the consensus means is that Mr Holness is de facto leader-in-waiting; that annual conference could be a sort of coronation of the man some are calling 'Prince Andrew'; that as soon as Prime Minister Bruce Golding signals his departure date from Jamaica, JLP MPs will advise the governor general that Mr Holness enjoys the support of the majority of members of the House and so should be appointed prime minister and invited to form a new Cabinet.

The decision by the aspirants for leadership and the JLP parliamentary caucus appears to have been vindicated by two opinion polls which showed Mr Holness as the widely preferred choice to lead the JLP at this time and provide a real contest for the People's National Party under the leadership of Portia Simpson Miller.

Pollsters Don Anderson for CVM-TV and Bill Johnson for the Gleaner surveyed the political preferences and voting intentions of the electorate between September 30 and October 1 just after Mr Golding announced he would resign as JLP leader and prime minister.

The Anderson-CVM poll found that 39 per cent would vote PNP under Mrs Simpson Miller and 35 per cent would vote for the JLP under Mr Holness.
This is a huge turnaround from the Anderson July 2011 poll which saw the PNP president with a virtually unassailable 23-point lead over Mr Golding, polling 38 per cent support compared to 15 per cent for the prime minister, mortally wounded by his mishandling of the US request for the extradition of Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, the reputed leader of the deadly Shower Posse.

The Johnson-Gleaner poll found that 44 per cent of Jamaicans would select the PNP president as prime minister while 40 per cent would choose the JLP leader-designate.

The previous Gleaner-commissioned poll in May and June of this year reported that 42 per cent of Jamaicans said Mrs Simpson Miller would do a better job as prime minister while 31 per cent of the respondents favoured Mr Golding; hence Mr Holness has cut an 11 per cent lead to just four.
Mrs Simpson Miller and the PNP can be expected to learn from the strong bump that Mr Holness has given the JLP and we await their reaction.

The data indicate that the decision of deputy leaders Audley Shaw and Dr Christopher Tufton, deputy chairman Bobby Montague and former chairman Dr Ken Baugh to scuttle their prime ministerial ambitions and coalesce around Mr Holness was in keeping with popular sentiment and spares the party a potentially nasty and divisive fight on the floor of annual conference, given the JLP's history of splitting into 'gangs' over leadership disagreements.

But while the consensus around Mr Holness was a necessary condition for party unity, the jury is still out as to whether it will be sufficient to secure a second term for the JLP.

For starters, the Johnson poll has found that almost seven in every 10 Jamaicans (66 per cent) believe the Golding administration was headed in the wrong direction with the economy.

As the Gleaner reported, this is almost unchanged from the 68 per cent who said the country was on the wrong path when Johnson posed the same question in June; but it is much better than the record 82 per cent disapproval captured in April 2010 at the height of the 'Dudus' controversy.

So the question that voters will have to decide is whether the JLP under Mr Holness's leadership will be sufficiently different from Mr Golding's to get the country back on track, or whether to give back the reins of power to Mrs Simpson Miller and the PNP.

The challenges are enormous: On the economic side, the biggest one is uncertainty surrounding the International Monetary Fund agreement.

For nearly a year the country has no clear idea about the status of the performance targets and the implications for the Government's ability to get access to funds under the agreement. Government spokesmen only say that the two sides are talking and that the situation is delicate.

Further, the JLP administration has failed to create jobs to compensate for those lost in the 2008-2009 recession; the number of people living in poverty is on the rise; the trade deficit is unsustainable; and government revenue is much lower than projected.

Signals from the IMF and global markets point to more weakening of the global economy; this will have adverse consequences for remittances, tourism, alumina exports and foreign direct investments.

Mr Holness seems to understand the challenge: "Whatever we draw as lines of separation, we want to stay together as we are in this boat together... and we can't rock this boat too much... Capsizing is not a very far-off possibility, and we must put that in this mix, and we must recognise that," he said at the press conference when he was endorsed by his parliamentary colleagues.

He promised sobriety, equity, efficiency and continuity as the main themes of his leadership. The first three are excellent values that should be pursued as he seeks to build on the consensus around his remarkable achievement at such a tender age. Clearly, the people and his colleagues believe he possesses attributes they are seeking at this time.

But Mr Holness may want to re-think continuity. The same voters who say they like him also say they do not like the policies that have been pursued by the administration that he helped to shape over the past four years.
The poll numbers and just the demands of good governance say there should be discontinuity from the politics that led to the 'Dudus-Manatt' debacle which cost the country much in terms of human lives (at least 73 in Tivoli), economic and social dislocation and international reputation.
As he waits for Mr Golding to hand over, Mr Holness would be well advised to demonstrate to the country that he has the temperament and the political savvy to do more than maintain party unity around a group of men and women notorious for squabbling.

More importantly, he must forge consensus around the national challenges and he must do so at a time when he will be under unrelenting scrutiny: Will he retain as JLP candidates persons who are under major investigation? James Robertson and Joseph Hibbert come to mind. Will he seek to work with independent and opposition sectors or spend the time shoring up the JLP base?

These signals, over the next few weeks, could establish new markers for the next election which, I believe, will be sooner rather than later.

kcr@cwjamaica.com



Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1aIDPY4ll

[Don1]

lol... yuh really tink seh politician tink suh?

election aggo kall wen dem tink dem cyan win....nutten else

[Exile]

I know and therein lies the grind - political expediency is the order of the day.
Will it ever be possible to have a National party of Jamaica that will all-inclusive and seeks Jamaica's interests first instead of narrow parochial views....?
Do we really have to depend/rely on the existing and traditional machinery?
If the major objectives of all political parties is get-in/stay-in power is there really any hope for the future??
Even if a third say strong force emerges, how long is it before it becomes the same old story?
Why do good people lose independent thought processes when it comes to party politics?
Can we do without the political systems? Will there be ever real change and rooting out of corruption? Is Jamaica so corrupt across the board that all is lost?
Just asking...

[Assasin]

Let us all just cut out the parties and have a Communist state or a coalition of the current so call tribalists. Think about, even as corrupted as it is now, where does the bucks stop then. The fact is it is our duty to weed out the corrupted on both sides of the fence and VOTE for Better and demand it.

[Exile]

Can't do that so tell me who will guard the guards? Who will do the weeding??? It can't be the Opposition or NGO's and our institutions are downsized and without teeth, our laws only for petty thieves...since JAG Smith any politician got locked up??? Yet we hear scandal after scandal.....

[Assasin]

at least we can vote some out now. What would it be under a one umbrella type of leadership?