Mark Wignall

It dies hard, the euphoria which accompanies a moment and a time when a special chapter of history is being written. It lingers like the viewing of a great work of art or the happening of one's own storybook romance. Like two souls basking in the afterglow of especially good sex, the senses hang on to it because there is no replay button; only the moment when it sinks in that it has really happened.

In the short distance from the sprawling fields of Jamaica College to the carnival-like atmosphere outside PNP headquarters, Portia Simpson Miller had, on that day - Saturday, February 25, 2006 - travelled a million miles of toil, hurt, disappointment and final triumph since her entry into politics over 30 years ago and her woeful loss to P J Patterson in 1992.

On February 25, the little black girl from the wrong side of the social border in Jamaica walked against the odds into our lives in her new dispensation as fourth president of the PNP and prime minister-designate of Jamaica. As she stepped up to the wicket, she took an entire nation of poor, powerless girls and boys with her.

Impoverished old women and silent, shuffling old men in deep rural hill country saw it, heard it, savoured it, and felt their hearts filled with hope for their country, and pride that one of their own had made it to the pinnacle. The inner-city unemployed and underemployed held their heads, raised their eyes to the heavens and wept openly and cried out like the supporters outside PNP headquarters; "Poh-sha, Poh-sha" repeatedly. Love and jubilation were in abundant supply.

From as early as 11:30 am on Saturday, sources were telling me that 75 per cent of the delegate votes were cast and Portia had secured about 50 per cent of them. For me, an ardent supporter of the Lady, that was all I needed. Unlike Karl Blythe who had nothing to sell apart from a smile permanently etched on his face and the overblown myth of his support base, Dr Peter Phillips was unsmiling at JC. While being interviewed by Nationwide's Cliff Hughes and the stunningly attractive Emily Crooks, Peter Phillips looked a beaten man long before he was officially handed his deserved certificate of defeat.

As the day progressed and the candidates assured the media that they were "safe", I found reason to gain added respect for Dr Omar Davies. In the interviews he gave at JC while delegates voted in wave after strategic wave, Omar Davies was a picture of humility. While Karl Blythe was immersed in the futility of trying to convince us that delegates who were not wearing the yellow of Team Portia and the orange of Phillips' Solid as a Rock were his supporters, Dr Davies went beyond the obvious, the mundane and championed the broader cause of PNP unity. After the results were read and his numbers placed him third to Dr Blythe's last place, Omar Davies in answering to the question, "What happened?" said simply, "I don't know". It was the only honest answer he could give and he did just that. Hats off to you, Omar.

At one crucial stage of the voting, sources told me that it appeared that Blythe had directed his delegates to vote for Phillips. To counter that, a well-placed rumour began that Blythe was supporting Portia. Dr Blythe was livid in the interviews he gave in his attempt to quell the rumours. Could it be that Karl Blythe had recognised the errors of his ways at that nth hour by going it alone and was desperately trying to worm his way into the good books of Peter Phillips? Could it be that Blythe's delegate support was really much more than the 204 he secured but that about 400 had been strategically "dumped" on the Solid as a Rock candidate because Blythe thought Phillips was about to win the contest?

If both of these scenarios are untrue, is Dr Blythe prepared to admit to us that through the smiling face, the open show of confidence, the mantra of the coloured shirts and his insistence over many months before that he was "going it alone", all he really had in delegate support was a paltry 204? Does this make any sense?

Although the PNP ought to be congratulated for the organisation and the smoothness of operations right throughout the day, we must not forget that in the vitals of the PNP there lies an old guard whose first duty is to themselves and the Great House. These are the people who have been "put first" since 1989.

The new prime minister will have to do a major reshuffling of her Cabinet. That is the easy part. Where it seems that the PNP exists for the main purpose of satisfying the whims of the few at the top of the social food chain, the more difficult task of internal social re-engineering presents itself to her. In other words, Portia was not placed there merely to do a better job of governance than P J Patterson. The delegates voted for her to change the direction in the relationships between political leadership and the people.

In 1935, Marcus Garvey was driven from his homeland by the colonialists and the Jamaican ruling class. In February 2006, his spirit has returned in the form of Portia Simpson Miller. Much is expected and will be demanded, but the people will listen at last and will move in sync with her.

She will be tugged in two directions. The cosmetic social engineering carried out by P J Patterson since 1993 has only cemented in place the resolve and the inordinate power of the few in the ruling class. The key to breaking this power is not so much adopting the approach of going head-to-head with the ruling class. That has never worked and it will not work now.

The key at its most simplistic is the placing of quality education in the hands of the large mass of people. Along with this must be jobs for the breadwinners of the most vulnerable families and the general empowerment of this class through thousands of micro-business start-ups in rural and inner-city communities. The theme this time around is not the building of a new Jamaica, but the creation of a new Jamaican.

Lastly, despite the hidden general unease in the class relationships in the ranks of the PNP which P J Patterson allowed to mushroom until its stark revelation in the presidential campaign, on his official announcement of Portia as the winner, it dawned on me that whatever the main agenda was behind the scenes in the PNP, Patterson was the precursor to the ascendancy of the likes of a Portia Simpson Miller to the highest post in the land.

In a master stroke, on the 11th hour, Patterson had secured his legacy.

observemark@yahoo.com

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