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Blunder steals Portia's thunder
published: Tuesday | September 4, 2007
PNP leader Portia Simpson Miller.
Decades from now, historians will have trouble fathoming why Portia Simpson Miller - with her approval ratings at a stratospheric level - did not call an election shortly after taking over from P.J. Patterson as leader.
What makes this political blunder even more mind-boggling is the fact that conventional wisdom has always been that a later date would always increase the possibility of a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) victory.
Now, instead of having her own mandate from the people of Jamaica, Simpson Miller, with her own political future now in doubt, will now go down in history as the second shortest-serving primer Minister behind the JLP's Donald Sangster. Sangster, who had succeeded Sir Alexander Bustamante as leader, died after serving a mere 48 days in office.
Prime Minister-elect Bruce Golding, who now has Simpson Miller to thank for this gift of a lifetime, made the very point over cocktails in Ocho Rios a few months ago.
PNP would have won
"There is no question in my mind that had she called it then, the People's National Party (PNP) would have won," he said. "In fact, with the kind of euphoria that followed her out of that PNP presidential race, I probably would have had problems holding on to my Western Kingston seat."
Pressed on whether it surprised him that Simpson Miller waited so long to go to the people, Golding gave an unequivocal no.
"Polls were showing that regardless of when an election was called, Mrs. Simpson Miller could not be beaten," he said. "I supposed the thinking then was that time would be better spent trying to repair the fallout from the bruising PNP presidential race, considering that the election result was but a foregone conclusion."
But weren't you a little bit surprised that there appeared to be hardly a thought given to the possibility that the JLP could well make a race out of it?
"I just think events overtook Mrs. Simpson Miller and her team of advisers," Golding added. "It all started with the belief that they could do no wrong and that they had the election in the bag. Then came Trafigura, and that, I believe, was the one thing that started the momentum shift. It was one bungling after another all the way up to the World Cup, and by then we were all but back in the game."
Simpson Miller, 61, first served as councillor for the Rose Town division of the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation in 1976. In February 2006, she defeated Dr. Peter Phillips, Dr. Omar Davies and Dr. Karl Blythe to succeed P.J. Patterson as PNP leader.
She remains one of the most admired members of the PNP, but persistent rumours of rifts with senior colleagues in the party seem to have unsettled the party's campaign and contributed to a humiliating defeat.
Political analyst Kevin O'Brien Chang believes the lack of support from Cabinet ministers was evident during the last three months of the campaign. The anti-Portia faction, he said, will be drawing daggers in the election's aftermath, and will look to former National Security Minister Peter Phillips to take over as party leader.
Controversy
"Rumour has it that Omar is going abroad, Blythe is no longer there, so by default it would have to be Phillips," Chang said.
Phillips, a former University of the West Indies lecturer, is currently a deputy leader of the PNP. He was rated by commentators as the most solid of the three government representatives in the national debates in August.
PNP activist Denzil 'Whizzie' McDonald, whose wife Sheree Brown McDonald was at the centre of the South East St. Ann controversy, said "it goes without saying" that the PNP would have won had an election been called shortly after Simpson Miller took over as leader.
"If that had happened, we would not be having this kind of discussion right now," he said. "There would have been no Trafigura, we would have avoided the problems in South East St. Ann and, most important, it would have been all over ... I can tell you, though, that the JLP has capitalised on the lifeline handed to it by the PNP ... "
With the PNP now in Opposition, political analyst Chang says the time may be right for it to finally shed some of its deadweight, which includes former ministers Phillip Paulwell and Colin Campbell. "It's hard to see them coming back; it's time to bring in some new blood," Chang said.
- G. D.
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