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Be the best, Bruce Golding, or...?
Mark Wignall
Thursday, September 13, 2007
It was only 18 months ago that we had former prime minister Portia Simpson Miller making her inauguration presentation and promises, and to some that was just yesterday. Two days ago we had Prime Minister Bruce Golding making his inauguration presentation and promises. What was the essential difference between the two ceremonies and how much hope were we sold in both instances?
In March last year, Portia seemed to have had the entire nation on her side and very definitely there was a widespread and unsolicited outpouring of love and goodwill towards her. In Golding's case he has pretty little going for him. Intellectual abilities, we have been told, can conveniently be replaced by "emotional intelligence", that quality which our feminists told us Portia had in abundance.
Golding's intellectual abilities or for that matter, anyone's "thinking side" is never popular in a country where the thinkers have been perceived as snake-oil salesmen peddling promises for the benefit of themselves and their friends. Which is the very reason why so much hope was pinned on Portia when she entered our lives on a higher plane last year.
The fact is we have had our fair share of intellectuals as leaders. It began with Norman Manley, founder of the PNP. Then we had his son Michael in the 1970s, Joshua to those of us who saw the "Promised Land" in every utterance from his mouth. In the 1980s we had the cold, hard-nosed, working intellectual, Eddie Seaga. In the 1990s we were presented with PJ Patterson, less an intellectual but more as a bright, capable, senior civil servant who could get the job done, if only he had 10 more terms.
To a nation of people starved by virtue of their own inability to recognise a "six from a nine", these leaders, along with Bustamante, Shearer, Simpson Miller, have all been a part of the soup mix which has kept them in what some have described as perpetual poverty. Only in Michael Manley did I see any real attempt to tackle the monster of ignorance, that is, until politics entered.
Bruce Golding as Jamaica's eighth prime minister comes to the table with no political capital. At the very least, a half of the voting nation did not want him. Looked at another way, 40 per cent of those who did not vote, along with about 15 per cent of voting age people who refused enumeration - that is 55 per cent of our voting age population - wanted neither Portia nor Bruce, or were not sufficiently moved to make a definite choice.
In February last year, when Portia won the PNP delegates' vote, people were dancing in the streets for days afterwards. In the week following the September 3 elections, it was business as usual. One could have forgiven a stranger coming to this country for the first time asking, "Why are things so sombre? Did someone die?"
Prime Minister Golding really has no choice but to be the best prime minister that this country has ever had. What other choice does he have?
He has no political capital. He has no great storehouse of love bursting at the seams for him. Worse, half of those who voted would have preferred to see Portia occupying his post. All of this converges on one very obvious spot. He has to succeed because he starts at ground zero, so to speak.
Some of the more obvious policy problems are facing him, but each one is facing him like a man pointing a double-barrelled pump action Mossberg shotgun at him. A few are ready to unload themselves brutally at him.
What will the Golding-led JLP administration do about the railway service? Is it still viable? How will Golding find it in himself and his Cabinet to reinvigorate the death penalty? When he made mention of "re-calibrate our approach to regional integration", I believe he was going beyond Caricom and giving us a hint at the JLP's likely approach to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
Weeks ago I was told that in informal circles in the US State Department, concern was expressed about Mrs Simpson Miller's response to a question on foreign policy during her debate with Bruce Golding. Her answer singled out Hugo Chavez, and as I gleaned, this did not go down too well with certain powerful US politicians.
How will Golding deal with Hugo Chavez, especially in light of a tightening of "cheap" developmental funds on the international scene? Increasingly, megalomania is setting in on Chavez, and it is fast taking away all the goodwill he had even up until a year ago. This one is staring the new JLP administration in the face, and could well provide the first real test for Golding's political savvy and intellect.
In 1980 the new JLP administration had as one of its calling cards a clean Jamaica. The Seaga-led administration began to clean up the filth of the urban areas, basing it on the simple understanding that people tend to act clean and civil if their surroundings reflect "civility".
In 2007, if the JLP administration wants to put teeth into the anti-litter law, a national ID for every adult will have to be the new paradigm. If a man is caught by a policeman urinating against a light-post, how will a fine be levied against him if he has no ID? Without an ID he will have to be arrested until he can be identified. That is a very delicate one to deal with, but we have to start with the basics - something that the last administration forgot about in the first few years after 1989.
Portia had the love of the people and she squandered it. Golding has nothing to begin with, and because of that he starts with an understanding that every step of the way, he has to earn himself a passage into the minds of the average Jamaican asking, who the hell is this man?
In my many conversations with Golding over many years, I am convinced that he is the right man for the time. He is no "black prince" like some made PJ Patterson to be, and certainly, unless one is a diehard JLP, no one wants to kiss Bruce Golding as Portia wanted to with everyone.
Golding questions every answer he is given to a question he first asked. He is always seeing the big picture but is unafraid to appreciate details. More than anything else, as a leader, he knows where to delegate what duty.
Therein lies his greatest challenge. The political machinery and systems in the wider civil service are, in key areas, designed to aid and abet corruption. I know that there will be a few JLP loyalists waiting in the wings to co-opt in five years all of the wrongs of the PNP's tenure over 18 years.
The Bruce Golding that I know will not take kindly to that. Again, he has my best wishes.
observemark@gmail.com
Mark Wignall
Thursday, September 13, 2007
It was only 18 months ago that we had former prime minister Portia Simpson Miller making her inauguration presentation and promises, and to some that was just yesterday. Two days ago we had Prime Minister Bruce Golding making his inauguration presentation and promises. What was the essential difference between the two ceremonies and how much hope were we sold in both instances?
In March last year, Portia seemed to have had the entire nation on her side and very definitely there was a widespread and unsolicited outpouring of love and goodwill towards her. In Golding's case he has pretty little going for him. Intellectual abilities, we have been told, can conveniently be replaced by "emotional intelligence", that quality which our feminists told us Portia had in abundance.
Golding's intellectual abilities or for that matter, anyone's "thinking side" is never popular in a country where the thinkers have been perceived as snake-oil salesmen peddling promises for the benefit of themselves and their friends. Which is the very reason why so much hope was pinned on Portia when she entered our lives on a higher plane last year.
The fact is we have had our fair share of intellectuals as leaders. It began with Norman Manley, founder of the PNP. Then we had his son Michael in the 1970s, Joshua to those of us who saw the "Promised Land" in every utterance from his mouth. In the 1980s we had the cold, hard-nosed, working intellectual, Eddie Seaga. In the 1990s we were presented with PJ Patterson, less an intellectual but more as a bright, capable, senior civil servant who could get the job done, if only he had 10 more terms.
To a nation of people starved by virtue of their own inability to recognise a "six from a nine", these leaders, along with Bustamante, Shearer, Simpson Miller, have all been a part of the soup mix which has kept them in what some have described as perpetual poverty. Only in Michael Manley did I see any real attempt to tackle the monster of ignorance, that is, until politics entered.
Bruce Golding as Jamaica's eighth prime minister comes to the table with no political capital. At the very least, a half of the voting nation did not want him. Looked at another way, 40 per cent of those who did not vote, along with about 15 per cent of voting age people who refused enumeration - that is 55 per cent of our voting age population - wanted neither Portia nor Bruce, or were not sufficiently moved to make a definite choice.
In February last year, when Portia won the PNP delegates' vote, people were dancing in the streets for days afterwards. In the week following the September 3 elections, it was business as usual. One could have forgiven a stranger coming to this country for the first time asking, "Why are things so sombre? Did someone die?"
Prime Minister Golding really has no choice but to be the best prime minister that this country has ever had. What other choice does he have?
He has no political capital. He has no great storehouse of love bursting at the seams for him. Worse, half of those who voted would have preferred to see Portia occupying his post. All of this converges on one very obvious spot. He has to succeed because he starts at ground zero, so to speak.
Some of the more obvious policy problems are facing him, but each one is facing him like a man pointing a double-barrelled pump action Mossberg shotgun at him. A few are ready to unload themselves brutally at him.
What will the Golding-led JLP administration do about the railway service? Is it still viable? How will Golding find it in himself and his Cabinet to reinvigorate the death penalty? When he made mention of "re-calibrate our approach to regional integration", I believe he was going beyond Caricom and giving us a hint at the JLP's likely approach to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
Weeks ago I was told that in informal circles in the US State Department, concern was expressed about Mrs Simpson Miller's response to a question on foreign policy during her debate with Bruce Golding. Her answer singled out Hugo Chavez, and as I gleaned, this did not go down too well with certain powerful US politicians.
How will Golding deal with Hugo Chavez, especially in light of a tightening of "cheap" developmental funds on the international scene? Increasingly, megalomania is setting in on Chavez, and it is fast taking away all the goodwill he had even up until a year ago. This one is staring the new JLP administration in the face, and could well provide the first real test for Golding's political savvy and intellect.
In 1980 the new JLP administration had as one of its calling cards a clean Jamaica. The Seaga-led administration began to clean up the filth of the urban areas, basing it on the simple understanding that people tend to act clean and civil if their surroundings reflect "civility".
In 2007, if the JLP administration wants to put teeth into the anti-litter law, a national ID for every adult will have to be the new paradigm. If a man is caught by a policeman urinating against a light-post, how will a fine be levied against him if he has no ID? Without an ID he will have to be arrested until he can be identified. That is a very delicate one to deal with, but we have to start with the basics - something that the last administration forgot about in the first few years after 1989.
Portia had the love of the people and she squandered it. Golding has nothing to begin with, and because of that he starts with an understanding that every step of the way, he has to earn himself a passage into the minds of the average Jamaican asking, who the hell is this man?
In my many conversations with Golding over many years, I am convinced that he is the right man for the time. He is no "black prince" like some made PJ Patterson to be, and certainly, unless one is a diehard JLP, no one wants to kiss Bruce Golding as Portia wanted to with everyone.
Golding questions every answer he is given to a question he first asked. He is always seeing the big picture but is unafraid to appreciate details. More than anything else, as a leader, he knows where to delegate what duty.
Therein lies his greatest challenge. The political machinery and systems in the wider civil service are, in key areas, designed to aid and abet corruption. I know that there will be a few JLP loyalists waiting in the wings to co-opt in five years all of the wrongs of the PNP's tenure over 18 years.
The Bruce Golding that I know will not take kindly to that. Again, he has my best wishes.
observemark@gmail.com