A game of blame, shame and disclaim

MICHAEL BURKE

Thursday, January 12, 2012

TODAY is the 57th anniversary of the first electoral victory of the People's National Party (PNP) led by Norman Manley in 1955. In conceding defeat, the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) Alexander Bustamante, who was knighted later that year, spoke about his party having nothing to be ashamed of. However, JLP members of the House of Representatives had been convicted and served prison sentences for crimes involving money.

This theme of "nothing to be ashamed of" resurfaced in Edward Seaga's concession speech of 1989 when the PNP, led by Michael Manley, returned to power. And we hear it again in the analysis of the JLP's recent defeat by the Portia Simpson Miller-led PNP. So today is also the 57th anniversary of the "nothing to be ashamed of" theme in Jamaica's politics.

At the same time in 1955, Bustamante said Jamaica was 'Judas Island'â and the Jamaican people were ungrateful. In 1959 when the PNP defeated the JLP again, Bustamante gave a speech in which he said that if there were no bogus voting then he would accept the defeat with a smile.

When Bustamante died in 1977, former Prime Minister Hugh Shearer did the tribute at the funeral. It formed the basis of a 1978 book entitled Alexander Bustamante with the subtitle Portrait of a Hero. It was edited by Mike Henry and the graphics and design were done by Troy Caine.

On the evening of the 1955 election when the first returns started to come in, the JLP at one stage had a lead and there was a Gleaner photograph of Bustamante with Gladys Longbridge (later Lady Bustamante) in a happy mood and smiling. The same Gleaner photograph is in the book edited by Mike Henry, but with a caption that stated in part that Bustamante accepted defeat with a smile in 1955.

In conceding defeat in 1972, the then Hugh Shearer-led JLP blamed the churches for the loss, attributing it to their opposition to the national lottery. But he did not say that the JLP had nothing to be ashamed of. On February 9, 1989, when the PNP returned to power, the JLP was magnanimous in defeat and said it had nothing to be ashamed of. However, a former JLP minister of government was subsequently convicted and sent to prison.

On Election Day, December 29, 2011, the PNP won. Again we heard some JLP stalwarts say there is nothing to be ashamed of. In the context of 2010 and 2011, was there really nothing to be ashamed of? Did Bruce Golding resign for the reasons he gave at the time, or because of what he said at the JLP conference in November: "They told me to pack my bags and go and I have done that"? Why was Golding told to pack his bags and go?

The PNP is not filled with saints. But at least no one in the PNP ever said in any concession speech that they have nothing to be ashamed of.

In 1975 a commission on constitutional reform, established particularly to achieve republican status, was set up by the Michael Manley Government. In the budget debate of 1977, Edward Seaga gave his views on the sort of republic that he envisaged. Constitutional reform was officially launched on the day the four sevens clashed (July 7, 1977). It started with a re-enactment of the march led by Paul Bogle from Stony Gut to the Morant Bay Courthouse in 1865.

In Morant Bay, Michael Manley said in his address that he wanted the constitution to be written simply so that everyone could read it. He further said that there would be three years of discussion by the Jamaican public and that there would be a referendum in 1980 and Jamaica would become a republic in 1981.

However on February 3, 1980, Michael Manley announced that as soon as the electoral office was ready he would be calling a general election. He also announced in the same broadcast that constitutional reform and republican status would be delayed until after the election, which was eventually called on October 30 that year. Edward Seaga led the JLP to a landslide of 51 seats to the PNP's nine.

Nothing else was heard about constitutional reform until the PNP returned to power in 1989. Somewhere towards the end of the tenure of PJ Patterson as prime minister, the matter of the Caribbean Court of Justice came up. Edward Seaga issued an ultimatum that if no referendum was called, the JLP would withhold its vote for the two-thirds of both Houses of Parliament that would be needed for Jamaica to achieve republican status. This is why Jamaica is not yet

a republic.

Again, constitutional reform was abandoned in 2007 when the JLP came to power and nothing was heard again until the PNP returned to power and Portia Simpson Miller spoke to it in her speech after being sworn in as prime minister last week. The move towards republican status has also suffered from the game of blame and shame that some might disclaim.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com

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A game of blame, shame and disclaim