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A shaky start
published: Sunday | September 23, 2007
Don Robotham, Contributor
(Left)Teams supporting Omar Davies (left) and Peter Phillips (right) must unite around the middle ground and save the PNP from itself. Party president Portia Simpson Miller (centre) seems on a path of destructive engagement.
(Right)Bruce Golding needs to go after the narcotics big fish on his own political side. - file photos
We are having a shaky start to this new political period. First, there was the mega-Cabinet, the clumsy handling of the Don Wehby appointment, and the post-Cabinet press conference confusion. Then the president of the People's National Party (PNP) decided to 'chaw fire'. The PNP seems bent on a course of destructive engagement. Then came the announcement of the horrendous 36 per cent increase in homicides in August 2007, compared to August 2006. And then the turmoil in Flankers and Canterbury.
The policy of a de facto state of emergency in 'hot spots,' which the JLP is applying, needs a stronger regulatory legal framework. Judicial oversight is one route to consider. The police have made headway in suppressing the hard-drugs trade. The drug dealers have, therefore, switched to ganja, which takes them into the countryside.
Mr. Golding needs to continue Peter Phillips's policy of going after the big fish on one's own political side. Phillips's actions earned him the eternal wrath of the PNP lumpen. We shall see if Mr. Golding is willing to pay the same political price with his lumpen.
Also, the JLP should drop those grandiose plans to set up an offshore financial centre. This is an invitation for drug-related money launderers to expand their operations on a colossal scale. The Proceeds from Crime Act would be a dead letter. Jamaica is not Barbados or The Cayman Islands.
YOUTH AND CRIME
Our crime problem is really a youth problem. We have about 320,000 males in the 15-29 age group. Grouping the youth portfolio along with sports, culture and information suggests that the youth problem is amenable to a recreational cure. Two tablespoons of dancehall plus one teaspoon of football - that should settle them!
Culture and sports help to 'occupy' the youth; but the youth will not be 'occupied' by dancehall for long. They need real jobs.
The turmoil in Flankers and Canterbury are classic examples. At the root, the issue is skills development, education, employ-ment, wage levels and entry into the formal economy. But decades of stagnation have left the youth cynical and uninterested in education and skills development. We must address these core issues and stop the bread-and-circus approach.
This means a central policy role for HEART/NTA. It means moving on a programme of mass skills certification for low-wage and unemployed youth, especially males. It means raising the prestige of skills development by a series of Governor-General's awards to put young mechanics, masons, electricians and carpenters in the national spotlight. It means rewarding 'rising stars' in the tradesman realm with greater hype than in the entertainment arena.
It means making adult male literacy our number one educational priority. It means developing incentive programmes for small- and medium-size business (our main employers) to hire and train more youth. It means taking the $450 million in paid-up tuition fees and putting it into a special youth development fund. Mr. Golding must roll up his sleeves, Michael Manley-style, get out there, and engage the youth in direct dialogue on these issues.
This must be done in their midst, not from some lofty parliamentary pulpit, because the youth actively resist skills development and education. This is not a matter of 'community development' or 'inner-city renewal'. Such approaches are too localised. A centrally directed nationwide mobilisation implemented across the board is what is needed.
The moderate political centre in Jamaican politics is watching the JLP and PNP. This centre is not interested in mega-Cabinets. The centre does not want government ministers to be part paid by the private sector - four-fifths private, one-fifth government! The centre does not want the Prime Minister to hitch rides on private jets belonging to corporate moneybags. It is not impressed when you trumpet that you have exchanged Trafigura for Glencore! It demands solutions to unemployment, crime, and police brutality.
If the centre concludes that Mr. Golding is a captive of the business élite or is a person who says one thing but does another, he is in deep trouble.
Neither the PNP nor the JLP looks very appealing. The JLP bungled the transition. The PNP went off the rails with a speech which is going to come back to haunt them. It would be no surprise if, as a result of all this, the 40 per cent who abstained in the general election jumps to 50 per cent or higher.
Both the PNP and the JLP had better understand what happened in the recent election. The reasons for the PNP loss is that the PNP leadership turned off the middle-middle, lower-middle, and working classes which traditionally support the PNP.
significant supporters
Do the math. The urban poor are no more than 15 per cent of the total population. At most, they are 10 per cent of the electorate and are concentrated in the Kingston garrisons. A stratospheric 70 per cent approval meant Mrs. Simpson Miller's initial acclamation reached deep into the upper-middle class. She even had significant supporters from the light-skinned business élite - 'Labourites for Portia' - the rich brigade. But all this collapsed. The first Budget Debate and Trafigura were the turning points.
But for racial and class reasons, these stable social groups also remained suspicious of the JLP. They could not bring themselves to vote for them either. So they abstained.
The challenge for both parties is to win the political centre. Mr. Golding believes that the centre can be seduced on the soft issues - constitutionalism and corruption - and by 'word sounds'; the PNP is disunited, licking its wounds while lashing out in acts of destructive engagement.
If the PNP wants to remain in the political wilderness, it should continue on this course. A party which campaigned on the basis that such promises were fiscally irresponsible, now turns around and trumpets that free tuition and health care must be provided at all costs. Haba! What sort of idle nonsense is this? If it has nothing useful to contribute, the PNP should 'kibba' its mouth.
If it wants to avoid the fate which befell Mr. Seaga, that party had better change from its destructive engagement course. The Davies and Phillips teams must unite around the middle ground and save the PNP from itself. If the present leadership continues to scorn the political centre, then the centre will return the compliment.
real solutions to real problems
They should not delude themselves with the thought that Jamaica is PNP country.
This is true only in so far as the PNP champions the aspirations of the stable social classes which founded it - the middle class, the ambitious small farmers, the organised working class. When the PNP turns its back on these groups and takes its cue solely from the urban poor, then it loses the hills of Clarendon. It loses large areas of St. James. It cannot win St. Elizabeth. It cannot regain ground in St. Ann. It only squeaks home in Central Manchester. This was the lesson of 1980 and of 2007 also.
If Mr. Golding is able to implement policies which substantively address the concerns of the political centre, Jamaica will become JLP country. The chief handicap that Mr. Golding faces is the narrow NDM line - the tendency to apply legal solutions to every policy question under the sun.
There is a lesser obstacle arising from race - the charge that the JLP has become 'the brown-man party'. Experience shows that this charge - once an albatross around the neck of the PNP - can be overcome if real solutions to real problems are found.
On the other hand, the chief obstacle the PNP faces in recovering the support of the centre is their leader. Some think a makeover of some kind is possible. If the PNP appoints a whole series of dubious characters to the Senate or attempts to sideline Dr. Phillips or Mrs. Henry-Wilson, or keeps up the internal divisiveness, then the writing will be on the wall. The urban lumpen are in charge and we can expect more strident tribalism. If the sensible tendencies unite, isolate the lumpen, and reach out to the centre, this will not only be good for the PNP. It will be good for Jamaica as well.
published: Sunday | September 23, 2007
Don Robotham, Contributor
(Left)Teams supporting Omar Davies (left) and Peter Phillips (right) must unite around the middle ground and save the PNP from itself. Party president Portia Simpson Miller (centre) seems on a path of destructive engagement.
(Right)Bruce Golding needs to go after the narcotics big fish on his own political side. - file photos
We are having a shaky start to this new political period. First, there was the mega-Cabinet, the clumsy handling of the Don Wehby appointment, and the post-Cabinet press conference confusion. Then the president of the People's National Party (PNP) decided to 'chaw fire'. The PNP seems bent on a course of destructive engagement. Then came the announcement of the horrendous 36 per cent increase in homicides in August 2007, compared to August 2006. And then the turmoil in Flankers and Canterbury.
The policy of a de facto state of emergency in 'hot spots,' which the JLP is applying, needs a stronger regulatory legal framework. Judicial oversight is one route to consider. The police have made headway in suppressing the hard-drugs trade. The drug dealers have, therefore, switched to ganja, which takes them into the countryside.
Mr. Golding needs to continue Peter Phillips's policy of going after the big fish on one's own political side. Phillips's actions earned him the eternal wrath of the PNP lumpen. We shall see if Mr. Golding is willing to pay the same political price with his lumpen.
Also, the JLP should drop those grandiose plans to set up an offshore financial centre. This is an invitation for drug-related money launderers to expand their operations on a colossal scale. The Proceeds from Crime Act would be a dead letter. Jamaica is not Barbados or The Cayman Islands.
YOUTH AND CRIME
Our crime problem is really a youth problem. We have about 320,000 males in the 15-29 age group. Grouping the youth portfolio along with sports, culture and information suggests that the youth problem is amenable to a recreational cure. Two tablespoons of dancehall plus one teaspoon of football - that should settle them!
Culture and sports help to 'occupy' the youth; but the youth will not be 'occupied' by dancehall for long. They need real jobs.
The turmoil in Flankers and Canterbury are classic examples. At the root, the issue is skills development, education, employ-ment, wage levels and entry into the formal economy. But decades of stagnation have left the youth cynical and uninterested in education and skills development. We must address these core issues and stop the bread-and-circus approach.
This means a central policy role for HEART/NTA. It means moving on a programme of mass skills certification for low-wage and unemployed youth, especially males. It means raising the prestige of skills development by a series of Governor-General's awards to put young mechanics, masons, electricians and carpenters in the national spotlight. It means rewarding 'rising stars' in the tradesman realm with greater hype than in the entertainment arena.
It means making adult male literacy our number one educational priority. It means developing incentive programmes for small- and medium-size business (our main employers) to hire and train more youth. It means taking the $450 million in paid-up tuition fees and putting it into a special youth development fund. Mr. Golding must roll up his sleeves, Michael Manley-style, get out there, and engage the youth in direct dialogue on these issues.
This must be done in their midst, not from some lofty parliamentary pulpit, because the youth actively resist skills development and education. This is not a matter of 'community development' or 'inner-city renewal'. Such approaches are too localised. A centrally directed nationwide mobilisation implemented across the board is what is needed.
The moderate political centre in Jamaican politics is watching the JLP and PNP. This centre is not interested in mega-Cabinets. The centre does not want government ministers to be part paid by the private sector - four-fifths private, one-fifth government! The centre does not want the Prime Minister to hitch rides on private jets belonging to corporate moneybags. It is not impressed when you trumpet that you have exchanged Trafigura for Glencore! It demands solutions to unemployment, crime, and police brutality.
If the centre concludes that Mr. Golding is a captive of the business élite or is a person who says one thing but does another, he is in deep trouble.
Neither the PNP nor the JLP looks very appealing. The JLP bungled the transition. The PNP went off the rails with a speech which is going to come back to haunt them. It would be no surprise if, as a result of all this, the 40 per cent who abstained in the general election jumps to 50 per cent or higher.
Both the PNP and the JLP had better understand what happened in the recent election. The reasons for the PNP loss is that the PNP leadership turned off the middle-middle, lower-middle, and working classes which traditionally support the PNP.
significant supporters
Do the math. The urban poor are no more than 15 per cent of the total population. At most, they are 10 per cent of the electorate and are concentrated in the Kingston garrisons. A stratospheric 70 per cent approval meant Mrs. Simpson Miller's initial acclamation reached deep into the upper-middle class. She even had significant supporters from the light-skinned business élite - 'Labourites for Portia' - the rich brigade. But all this collapsed. The first Budget Debate and Trafigura were the turning points.
But for racial and class reasons, these stable social groups also remained suspicious of the JLP. They could not bring themselves to vote for them either. So they abstained.
The challenge for both parties is to win the political centre. Mr. Golding believes that the centre can be seduced on the soft issues - constitutionalism and corruption - and by 'word sounds'; the PNP is disunited, licking its wounds while lashing out in acts of destructive engagement.
If the PNP wants to remain in the political wilderness, it should continue on this course. A party which campaigned on the basis that such promises were fiscally irresponsible, now turns around and trumpets that free tuition and health care must be provided at all costs. Haba! What sort of idle nonsense is this? If it has nothing useful to contribute, the PNP should 'kibba' its mouth.
If it wants to avoid the fate which befell Mr. Seaga, that party had better change from its destructive engagement course. The Davies and Phillips teams must unite around the middle ground and save the PNP from itself. If the present leadership continues to scorn the political centre, then the centre will return the compliment.
real solutions to real problems
They should not delude themselves with the thought that Jamaica is PNP country.
This is true only in so far as the PNP champions the aspirations of the stable social classes which founded it - the middle class, the ambitious small farmers, the organised working class. When the PNP turns its back on these groups and takes its cue solely from the urban poor, then it loses the hills of Clarendon. It loses large areas of St. James. It cannot win St. Elizabeth. It cannot regain ground in St. Ann. It only squeaks home in Central Manchester. This was the lesson of 1980 and of 2007 also.
If Mr. Golding is able to implement policies which substantively address the concerns of the political centre, Jamaica will become JLP country. The chief handicap that Mr. Golding faces is the narrow NDM line - the tendency to apply legal solutions to every policy question under the sun.
There is a lesser obstacle arising from race - the charge that the JLP has become 'the brown-man party'. Experience shows that this charge - once an albatross around the neck of the PNP - can be overcome if real solutions to real problems are found.
On the other hand, the chief obstacle the PNP faces in recovering the support of the centre is their leader. Some think a makeover of some kind is possible. If the PNP appoints a whole series of dubious characters to the Senate or attempts to sideline Dr. Phillips or Mrs. Henry-Wilson, or keeps up the internal divisiveness, then the writing will be on the wall. The urban lumpen are in charge and we can expect more strident tribalism. If the sensible tendencies unite, isolate the lumpen, and reach out to the centre, this will not only be good for the PNP. It will be good for Jamaica as well.
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