Tweet
Do we really need an Opposition party?
WIGNALL’S WORLD
MARK WIGNALL
Sunday, January 08, 2012
IN the euphoria which attended the PNP's wipeout of the JLP, the word on the street is that the PNP will be in power for the next 25 years.
Tough economic decisions are immaterial and 'freeing up the country' seems to be more of a priority to supporters of the PNP than any other factor. Somehow in this 'freeing up' jobs will materialise.
GOLDING… appointed a three-panel commission where two of the men sitting were dead ringers for men who could have walked through the front door of a sugar plantation great house 200 years before
1/3 
Conventional wisdom is that the JLP places too much importance on fiscal discipline while the PNP tends to focus on the 'human condition'. Somehow in all of this, fiscal discipline and attending to the human condition are mutually exclusive. That is, one is almost the antithesis of the other.
In applying the perfect vision of hindsight, the JLP began the process of losing the December 29 election when it convened the Manatt enquiry. In a country where 95 per cent of its people resemble Portia Simpson Miller, then Prime Minister Bruce Golding appointed a three-panel commission where two of the men sitting were dead ringers for men who could have walked through the front door of a sugar plantation great house 200 years before.
Throughout the highly publicised enquiry the commissioners appeared disinterested as the latter-day field hands bickered and one found an 'I can't recall' groove. The report, when delivered, whitewashed the misdeeds of the house slaves.
The second shocker came with Golding's sudden resignation. That it arrived at just about the same time when the rumour mill was at its most productive, did not help. An 'external hand' was at work, some said. Others saw it as sheer political expediency.
To the surprise of many, the transition from Golding to Holness was without the usual JLP bickering and the unsheathing of long swords.
The third spanner in the works was the JDIP scandal. Here it was that the JLP administration was literally sitting down on US$400 million designed for road works islandwide, and the refurbishing of the offices of the National Works Agency (NWA) became a priority. Over J$100 million was the bill!
Figuring that Jamaicans would view accusations of JLP corruption as they do PNP corruption, Holness went ahead and still called an early election. The fact is corruption has never affected the PNP's popularity as the prevailing view is that, understanding the 'human condition', the PNP does a much better job of spreading the booty.
Headed to an election with veiled threats to civil servants, talk of laying off at least 15,000 in the public arena and the only real successes were stability in exchange rates, trending down of bank rates, increased NIR and the much touted JDX, the JLP conveniently forgot what happened in 1989.
The late Professor Carl Stone in his last book Politics versus Economics wrote the following in 1989. "Are Jamaican voters simply irrational? Are their voting choices impervious to positive economic trends and the pocket-book principle which has given successive electoral victories to political parties and leaders in Western Europe and North America that are associated with economic upturns and good economic management?
"...In 1976, the redistributive PNP social policies designed to share up the economic cake better caught the imagination of the youth and the poorer classes and won Michael Manley and the PNP a landslide victory although the economy had begun to decline. By 1980, the economic decline under the PNP wiped out all the political gains due to redistributive policies, and poor management of the economy, aided by fears about communism, generated a massive swing towards the JLP. Anti-communism simply helped to accelerate the PNP vote deficit but the really dominant issue in the PNP defeat in 1980 was the deteriorating economy (increased unemployment, shortages, business closures, lay-offs, shortage of foreign exchange, drastic decline in imports, etc.)"
It would seem to me that although the incoming PNP administration is about to launch another redistributive policy (JEEP), it must take into consideration the delicate balance that the economy is and the small wiggle room that an IMF standby agreement will allow.
Stone continued: "The trend in production, savings, investment, employment growth, import and export growth, financial management, and changes in real income all suggest that the Jamaican economy in the 1980s has been performing better than in the 1970s. Since the economy was so decisive in causing the PNP to be voted out in 1980, it seems only reasonable that an apparently better economic performance by the JLP in the 1980s should facilitate a return to power and perhaps enough recovery of voter support over the 1986 to 1988 period to make the party's third term prospects a real possibility."
Of course, we all know what happened in 1989. The PNP won by a landslide (45 to the JLP's 15 seats) and it retained power until September 2007.
Stone continues with a well-known truism. "Politics and political choices are influenced as much by perceptions as by economic realities."
Massive public spending by the JLP in the months leading up to the February 1989 election coupled by the strong economic performance of the then JLP Government were not enough to stave off the huge PNP win. The coldness of Seaga as against the warmth of Manley along with a belief that the economic pie was unfairly distributed led to the defeat of the JLP.
Lessons can be learned from that time and applied to what took place on December 29. The JLP with its more conservative policies and its penchant for getting the numbers right is always faced with the double whammy of not having a charismatic leader. In the weeks leading up to the December election, Holness's mouth was saying 'win' while his face and body were shouting 'lose'.
Coupled with that, it is not enough for the JLP to be the party of better economic performance because history has shown us that what the PNP can get away with the JLP cannot, simply because the JLP has never found a leader who can go beyond the selling of economic soundness. He or she has to go above that and sell a show of understanding and caring for the plight of the man and woman at street level. Yes, the operative word is 'show'.
The JLP will get worse before it gets better
I am, by nature, a socialist. That state has been generated by the burden of mey being a generous person.
There are individuals that I have been assisting for many years and I am a firm believer that more people ought to exercise this behaviour.
I do not believe, however, that countries can be run on this basis. Generosity cannot be imposed, and hence there can never be a truly socialist state unless the state expropriates the 'excesses' of one sector and redistributes it to another.
Taxation is but the first in this approach, but that only assumes that we all share the same physical and social environment and derive benefits from doing so. If man was inherently, socially unselfish, the extent of his desires driven by his economic prowess would not allow him to acquire, say, a 30-room mansion when he knows that some men will be doomed by poverty to a hovel.
This is not an argument for socialism, only that man is naturally drawn to himself and family first as a main objective and does not expend too much time pondering the socio-economic weaknesses of others. It is the very basis of what drives capitalism.
The JLP has always attracted the sort of candidates who are in fact mini CEOs. They mean well but constantly fail to appreciate the raw material they are working with — the people.
A few days ago, I heard the loudspeaker from a Damion Crawford vehicle carry one of his campaign speeches. The JLP could learn something from it. While I must confess that I did not hear all of it, what I did hear was the stuff that the man and woman at street level would go for. Short on specifics but cunningly connecting with his audience, something known as good politics.
The JLP candidates have been trying to connect with a Jamaican who has not yet arrived. And here I can hear them shouting, 'Don't diss the electorate!' The fact is, and many of us are scared to admit it, there is a dangerous education deficit in this country, and to the extent that a significant part of this can be linked to an 'intelligence deficit', many more of our people will be fooled.
It is my belief that the PNP has mastered the art of this political con game. It could be that too many of the JLP candidates did not want to accept the view that they had to talk from the podium in a 'learnt' language that would make many of them personally uncomfortable. In which case they should have allowed others to take their places.
It will not be an easy task for the JLP to rebuild. The party is now going through the usual state of fragmentation when what it needs to do is draw together and plan for the next five years. It has to keep classes in 'understanding the voter'. It has to study, study and do more studying. Push the master's degrees to one side and learn how to connect with the people.
That, however, is just the first hurdle. The biggest is in changing the JLP from its core beliefs. Which are?
There must be casualties in the ranks of the JLP and the Secretariat must be the first.
When the race was run, it was my belief that Aundre Franklin was the wrong man for the job. Big on talk but unable to open doors and mend fences. The fact that an election was held, the party was not ready, the party had time, yet the advice was a big go, must say to the JLP that the Secretariat was simply an empty suit.
Where is the new politician?
It cannot be a virtue that rational men and women desire — this need to have others see them as special, having extraordinary powers and capable of satisfying man's main needs.
Politicians are such people and they are driven by what appears to be an incompleteness of their human condition. That incompleteness places on them a burden to see their total selves as the summation of what others discern them to be. Without the adulation of the crowd, they believe they are only insignificant fractions of themselves.
Unfortunately there are enough people in the world to listen to them and to give them their wholesomeness. Unfortunately, it is only through the political and democratic process that we can make any claim to being a viable society. The responsibility of our people to elect the best must never be lost, but at times the best is dressed up in the wrong garb and unaware of how to wrap the words in gobs of treacle.
The PNP has promised them syrup and the people wait patiently.
In the unprecedented low turnout, by the rules of the game, the PNP won and did so handsomely. That, however, is not the full story. The ruling PNP now has to ask itself, as the JLP must too, what was it that caused so many voters to be so turned off from the process?
That question will not be a priority, as consolidating the win will be all-consuming while on the other side the JLP will be licking its wounds.
For now we await more than words from the new Simpson Miller-led Government. It seems like we have heard them before, this talk about fiscal prudence when history tells us that the PNP has never allowed that to get in the way of retaining power.
JEEP can only mean something tangible to the country if the funds arrive from external sources and they are either in the form of grants (highly unlikely considering the quantum needed) or extremely soft loans. If either of these types of funding materialise, then it is quite possible that it could be seen as a stimulus to the economy.
If the money is going to be derived from domestic funds, then we will be going downhill again, as happened in the 1970s.
observemark@gmail.com
WIGNALL’S WORLD
MARK WIGNALL
Sunday, January 08, 2012 IN the euphoria which attended the PNP's wipeout of the JLP, the word on the street is that the PNP will be in power for the next 25 years.
Tough economic decisions are immaterial and 'freeing up the country' seems to be more of a priority to supporters of the PNP than any other factor. Somehow in this 'freeing up' jobs will materialise.
GOLDING… appointed a three-panel commission where two of the men sitting were dead ringers for men who could have walked through the front door of a sugar plantation great house 200 years before 1/3 Conventional wisdom is that the JLP places too much importance on fiscal discipline while the PNP tends to focus on the 'human condition'. Somehow in all of this, fiscal discipline and attending to the human condition are mutually exclusive. That is, one is almost the antithesis of the other.
In applying the perfect vision of hindsight, the JLP began the process of losing the December 29 election when it convened the Manatt enquiry. In a country where 95 per cent of its people resemble Portia Simpson Miller, then Prime Minister Bruce Golding appointed a three-panel commission where two of the men sitting were dead ringers for men who could have walked through the front door of a sugar plantation great house 200 years before.
Throughout the highly publicised enquiry the commissioners appeared disinterested as the latter-day field hands bickered and one found an 'I can't recall' groove. The report, when delivered, whitewashed the misdeeds of the house slaves.
The second shocker came with Golding's sudden resignation. That it arrived at just about the same time when the rumour mill was at its most productive, did not help. An 'external hand' was at work, some said. Others saw it as sheer political expediency.
To the surprise of many, the transition from Golding to Holness was without the usual JLP bickering and the unsheathing of long swords.
The third spanner in the works was the JDIP scandal. Here it was that the JLP administration was literally sitting down on US$400 million designed for road works islandwide, and the refurbishing of the offices of the National Works Agency (NWA) became a priority. Over J$100 million was the bill!
Figuring that Jamaicans would view accusations of JLP corruption as they do PNP corruption, Holness went ahead and still called an early election. The fact is corruption has never affected the PNP's popularity as the prevailing view is that, understanding the 'human condition', the PNP does a much better job of spreading the booty.
Headed to an election with veiled threats to civil servants, talk of laying off at least 15,000 in the public arena and the only real successes were stability in exchange rates, trending down of bank rates, increased NIR and the much touted JDX, the JLP conveniently forgot what happened in 1989.
The late Professor Carl Stone in his last book Politics versus Economics wrote the following in 1989. "Are Jamaican voters simply irrational? Are their voting choices impervious to positive economic trends and the pocket-book principle which has given successive electoral victories to political parties and leaders in Western Europe and North America that are associated with economic upturns and good economic management?
"...In 1976, the redistributive PNP social policies designed to share up the economic cake better caught the imagination of the youth and the poorer classes and won Michael Manley and the PNP a landslide victory although the economy had begun to decline. By 1980, the economic decline under the PNP wiped out all the political gains due to redistributive policies, and poor management of the economy, aided by fears about communism, generated a massive swing towards the JLP. Anti-communism simply helped to accelerate the PNP vote deficit but the really dominant issue in the PNP defeat in 1980 was the deteriorating economy (increased unemployment, shortages, business closures, lay-offs, shortage of foreign exchange, drastic decline in imports, etc.)"
It would seem to me that although the incoming PNP administration is about to launch another redistributive policy (JEEP), it must take into consideration the delicate balance that the economy is and the small wiggle room that an IMF standby agreement will allow.
Stone continued: "The trend in production, savings, investment, employment growth, import and export growth, financial management, and changes in real income all suggest that the Jamaican economy in the 1980s has been performing better than in the 1970s. Since the economy was so decisive in causing the PNP to be voted out in 1980, it seems only reasonable that an apparently better economic performance by the JLP in the 1980s should facilitate a return to power and perhaps enough recovery of voter support over the 1986 to 1988 period to make the party's third term prospects a real possibility."
Of course, we all know what happened in 1989. The PNP won by a landslide (45 to the JLP's 15 seats) and it retained power until September 2007.
Stone continues with a well-known truism. "Politics and political choices are influenced as much by perceptions as by economic realities."
Massive public spending by the JLP in the months leading up to the February 1989 election coupled by the strong economic performance of the then JLP Government were not enough to stave off the huge PNP win. The coldness of Seaga as against the warmth of Manley along with a belief that the economic pie was unfairly distributed led to the defeat of the JLP.
Lessons can be learned from that time and applied to what took place on December 29. The JLP with its more conservative policies and its penchant for getting the numbers right is always faced with the double whammy of not having a charismatic leader. In the weeks leading up to the December election, Holness's mouth was saying 'win' while his face and body were shouting 'lose'.
Coupled with that, it is not enough for the JLP to be the party of better economic performance because history has shown us that what the PNP can get away with the JLP cannot, simply because the JLP has never found a leader who can go beyond the selling of economic soundness. He or she has to go above that and sell a show of understanding and caring for the plight of the man and woman at street level. Yes, the operative word is 'show'.
The JLP will get worse before it gets better
I am, by nature, a socialist. That state has been generated by the burden of mey being a generous person.
There are individuals that I have been assisting for many years and I am a firm believer that more people ought to exercise this behaviour.
I do not believe, however, that countries can be run on this basis. Generosity cannot be imposed, and hence there can never be a truly socialist state unless the state expropriates the 'excesses' of one sector and redistributes it to another.
Taxation is but the first in this approach, but that only assumes that we all share the same physical and social environment and derive benefits from doing so. If man was inherently, socially unselfish, the extent of his desires driven by his economic prowess would not allow him to acquire, say, a 30-room mansion when he knows that some men will be doomed by poverty to a hovel.
This is not an argument for socialism, only that man is naturally drawn to himself and family first as a main objective and does not expend too much time pondering the socio-economic weaknesses of others. It is the very basis of what drives capitalism.
The JLP has always attracted the sort of candidates who are in fact mini CEOs. They mean well but constantly fail to appreciate the raw material they are working with — the people.
A few days ago, I heard the loudspeaker from a Damion Crawford vehicle carry one of his campaign speeches. The JLP could learn something from it. While I must confess that I did not hear all of it, what I did hear was the stuff that the man and woman at street level would go for. Short on specifics but cunningly connecting with his audience, something known as good politics.
The JLP candidates have been trying to connect with a Jamaican who has not yet arrived. And here I can hear them shouting, 'Don't diss the electorate!' The fact is, and many of us are scared to admit it, there is a dangerous education deficit in this country, and to the extent that a significant part of this can be linked to an 'intelligence deficit', many more of our people will be fooled.
It is my belief that the PNP has mastered the art of this political con game. It could be that too many of the JLP candidates did not want to accept the view that they had to talk from the podium in a 'learnt' language that would make many of them personally uncomfortable. In which case they should have allowed others to take their places.
It will not be an easy task for the JLP to rebuild. The party is now going through the usual state of fragmentation when what it needs to do is draw together and plan for the next five years. It has to keep classes in 'understanding the voter'. It has to study, study and do more studying. Push the master's degrees to one side and learn how to connect with the people.
That, however, is just the first hurdle. The biggest is in changing the JLP from its core beliefs. Which are?
There must be casualties in the ranks of the JLP and the Secretariat must be the first.
When the race was run, it was my belief that Aundre Franklin was the wrong man for the job. Big on talk but unable to open doors and mend fences. The fact that an election was held, the party was not ready, the party had time, yet the advice was a big go, must say to the JLP that the Secretariat was simply an empty suit.
Where is the new politician?
It cannot be a virtue that rational men and women desire — this need to have others see them as special, having extraordinary powers and capable of satisfying man's main needs.
Politicians are such people and they are driven by what appears to be an incompleteness of their human condition. That incompleteness places on them a burden to see their total selves as the summation of what others discern them to be. Without the adulation of the crowd, they believe they are only insignificant fractions of themselves.
Unfortunately there are enough people in the world to listen to them and to give them their wholesomeness. Unfortunately, it is only through the political and democratic process that we can make any claim to being a viable society. The responsibility of our people to elect the best must never be lost, but at times the best is dressed up in the wrong garb and unaware of how to wrap the words in gobs of treacle.
The PNP has promised them syrup and the people wait patiently.
In the unprecedented low turnout, by the rules of the game, the PNP won and did so handsomely. That, however, is not the full story. The ruling PNP now has to ask itself, as the JLP must too, what was it that caused so many voters to be so turned off from the process?
That question will not be a priority, as consolidating the win will be all-consuming while on the other side the JLP will be licking its wounds.
For now we await more than words from the new Simpson Miller-led Government. It seems like we have heard them before, this talk about fiscal prudence when history tells us that the PNP has never allowed that to get in the way of retaining power.
JEEP can only mean something tangible to the country if the funds arrive from external sources and they are either in the form of grants (highly unlikely considering the quantum needed) or extremely soft loans. If either of these types of funding materialise, then it is quite possible that it could be seen as a stimulus to the economy.
If the money is going to be derived from domestic funds, then we will be going downhill again, as happened in the 1970s.
observemark@gmail.com
Comment