"When she came to work in North West St Ann, she was eager, she had a good team and together they took home the seat for the JLP. Although I found her to be the type of person with a short fuse, I honestly did not expect her to make that broadside against the party in whose bed she slept and where she made many friends.

I am so sorry for her and for the party which has now accepted her," said a rural JLP MP of Verna Parchment.
When Karl Samuda broke ranks with the JLP in the wake of the Gang of Five 'plots and counterplots' and joined the PNP in the early 1990s, one of the actions taken by him was the figurative breaking of 'Busta's finger'.

In speaking to a captive audience of PNP supporters, he held up a wooden hand, which formed the JLP's 'victory' sign and proceeded to break one of the fingers. In doing that, he signalled with definite finality, his break from the JLP. Or so he believed.

We will never know if his action was a required one, scripted for him by the PNP, or if it was a spontaneous and stupid move generated by political zeal. What we do know is that Samuda, who had won the North Central St Andrew seat on the JLP ticket in 1989, made history by winning the seat as a PNP representative in 1993 then returned to the JLP and won the seat for them in 1997 and 2002. What a politician!
One fact that Ms Verna Parchment must face is that she is no Karl Samuda.

It may be that Ms Parchment is correct in a general sense when she said that while she was a member of the JLP, political victimisation was the norm. But Ms Parchment also implied that that is also the norm in the PNP. I am certain that all of those in the top ranks of the PNP must now be wringing their hands and saying, 'Dear God, could she not have stopped with regurgitating the sins of the JLP? It seems we have a loose cannon on our hands'.

Ms Parchment has not been selected by the PNP to run in a seat, so for now, the ruling party must accept her as a spoiler for the JLP and something must be extracted from her in return for the propaganda value of walking away from the Opposition.

Another JLP representative from a poor, rural constituency said of her, "It is painfully obvious to me that Verna is in need of help. It is clear that the PNP old bus is being packed by political rejects. She will never be respected by the PNP, but maybe for now, that is not important to her".

PARCHMENT.has not been selected by the PNP to run in a seat, so for now, the ruling party must accept her as a spoiler for the JLP

A PNP friend of mine who approached me with glee on her outburst said, "What we the PNP are doing is clearing the air and letting out the tawdry secrets of the JLP. That party will never see power under the leadership of Sister P. Parchment made the right move."

A JLP MP who, like all the others, did not want his name attached to any quote, said, "I don't know what it is that Verna Parchment took that day or did not take. What I can recall of the TV clip is the blackboard behind her showing something which looked like a summary of a constituency canvas with the JLP ahead of the PNP. Any party which allows confidential findings like that to be blown up on national TV is not a party ready for elections."

He went on to say, "The news I have for the PNP is, don't watch the noise of the marketplace. Watch the sale."

Political transitions

Brascoe Lee and Kenneth Rowe in their present dispensations can hardly be considered political heavyweights. Lee has politics in his blood, and at the height of his political career he exerted significant weight in the 1980s when he was in the Ministry of Agriculture under the Seaga-led JLP administration.
But one never knows where Lee's loyalties lie. JLP MP for South Trelawny, JLP minister in the 1980s, and a man who took a leading role in organising the breakaway Western Eleven which eventually led to the formation of the NDM in 1995.

A firm believer in Eddie Seaga's unmarketability after the 1989 loss, Lee took many leading roles in the NDM, although many thought he was more mouth and stance than substance. Lee has been very consistent in the belief that it was Golding who allowed the NDM to die because he (Golding) never had the heart for anything but the JLP.

While the NDM made its transition from death to many failed attempts at exhumation, Brascoe Lee continued to attach himself to a shell and so he must be congratulated for resilience, for remaining true to his beliefs and, not the least, he needs to be praised for being a sucker for political punishment.

At just about the same time that Kenneth Rowe lost the JLP West Portland selection to Daryl Vaz, Brascoe Lee saw the PNP as another political frontier. It is hardly likely that Lee could have gained entrance in the PNP under the leadership of either Phillips or Davies. Buoyed by the euphoria following the victory of Portia, Lee set his sights on the PNP and let it be known that he was available. Available for what? One is not so sure.

So the question to be asked of Brascoe Lee is, is he playing musical chairs at the time when the present PNP is singing, (with apologies to Emma Lazarus1849 - 1887) 'Give me your tired, your poor. the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.'

JLP inconsistency with Col Trevor MacMillan

It is more than likely that the JLP knows much more about its internal affairs than I do. In its decision to name ex-Commissioner of Police Col MacMillan to the Senate, it probably believes it has scored one over the PNP in the time when the PNP seems unable to secure quality candidates.

I would like to question the JLP's move against the background of unwritten agreements 'signed off on' a few years ago.
While Col MacMillan was our police commissioner in 1995 and Eddie Seaga was MP for the then troubled West Kingston constituency, Eddie Seaga gave MacMillan a list of names of 14 young men who it was said were causing much disturbance in the constituency.

We were told that the 'disturbance' took the form of rapes, shootings, and general mayhem. My memory of the event is that MacMillan told Seaga that, in not exactly similar words, 'it no go so'. Being the JLP 'owner' of the West Kingston constituency, Seaga probably thought that his production of a list with the first name being 'Dudus', the REAL community leader in Tivoli at present, would spur the commissioner to pick up the boys and throw them behind bars.

In the wake of Seaga's exit, the point man in West Kingston was Tom Tavares-Finson who, like Saleem Lazarus, was very close to the residents there. At one stage it was being touted that Tavares-Finson would be the next MP for West Kingston.
In the shuffling, Tavares-Finson and others 'softened' the ground for Bruce Golding whose garrison antecedents in Central St Catherine in the 1980s and early 1990s would only partly prepare him for political life in the most tightly organised garrison constituency in Jamaica.

I can recall that deals were made close to ground and leadership levels that if Tom Tavares-Finson give up his aspirations for representational politics in West Kingston, 'something' would be found for him at a very visible and important level in the JLP.

Then enters Col MacMillan, who was this super clean commissioner of police in the mid-1990s accepting a Senate post from Golding who now purportedly 'owns' West Kingston, the second most garrison-ised constituency in Jamaica. The most complete garrison is South West St Andrew, which is 'owned' by Portia Simpson Miller.

In the 2002 general elections in West Kingston, the vote was PNP 2,099, JLP 11,251. In South West St Andrew it was PNP 9,716, JLP 618.
Has MacMillan changed his stance on garrison politics, as it appears Golding has?

I was the first and probably the only columnist to make the call for Golding to return to the JLP and change it from within. As the only political leader to have heaped scorn on garrison politics, Golding needs to keep the nation up to date on his position.
Then again, could it be that MacMillan has been deemed 'better stock' than Tavares-Finson?

Silent guns and crossed legs

It has been reported that the wives and girlfriends of gang members in the Colombian city of Pereira have decided to keep their legs closed because their men have been too open with the gun, drug trafficking and violence.

Colombia is close to the top in murders and the present government has taken a tough stance on crime and violence. The sex strike, as it is being called, is certainly something that the world will be watching and, in Jamaica, the naïve will be hoping that there are lessons to be learnt from any successes coming out of this experiment.

We wish the Colombians luck. Our homegrown sociologists know that such a move, if attempted in Jamaica, would hardly elicit a yawn.

Jamaican men are the true polygamists. The partners of Jamaican desperados are usually called girlfriends simply because marriage is not too great a priority on the agenda for our men-folk, criminal minded or not.
Those who were brought up in mother/father/marriage homes probably account for less than 20 per cent of households. In the urban inner-city communities where drugs and gun criminality breed, sex is an integral part of the power trading between men and women.

From as early as seven years of age, young girls become very aware that the music, the 'wining,' the skimpy wear and the skin-out all play an important role in defining the woman which she will be in quick time.

Teen girls quickly learn that the use and unveiling of their sexual organ far outweigh anything that the head can think up. And the men around these girls are always there to remind them of its importance. As the lack of education grips these communities, the sex becomes the bargaining tool among young women.
"Mi run up a marathon pon a gal man last night," said one woman to a dancehall channel cameraman recently. Now imagine if that man referred to was 'suffering' from a sex strike on the home front. Some suffering indeed.

No sane inner-city young woman expects her boyfriend, live-in or not, to be sexually active solely with her. Such a man is a rarity and is considered 'saaf'. The whole dancehall culture, which is deeply embedded in the ghetto, is centred around 'nuff' sex, male promiscuity, female availability and male sex-power.

When the man 'steps out' in the evening, probably after holding up at gunpoint a few people outside the community the day before, he steps out in style, dollars in his pocket, expecting that something new will be available.

If this 'something new' doesn't happen, there is always the live-in to fall back on. The man therefore learns that sex is available in and out, and the young woman outside who is poorly educated and broke, pats herself at the spot, looks down and speaks to it, 'We a go look a food later'.

Sex at a good-time, short-time joint costs $400 and the man may leave her a $500 bill. Tomorrow is another day. Sex strike in Jamaica? Tell that to the birds.

observemark@gmail.com

The fear factor

Feeding the multitude

DANGEROUS PETS