GOLDING... will have opportunity to convince JLP of the separation of powers

BRUCE Golding, who walked out of the JLP seven years ago to form his own party, is back among the Labourites after they agreed yesterday to bury the hatchet and for the JLP to take onboard -- or at least consider -- some of the governance issues that caused their split in 1995.

Golding's action was seen last night as aimed at giving a fillip to what appeared to be a flagging Jamaica Labour Party election campaign, three weeks ahead of the October 16 general elections. A mid-August Stone Organisation poll for the Observer showed the ruling People's National Party (PNP) had reversed a six percentage points deficit of three months earlier and was leading the JLP by 3.4 percentage points.

CHEN...says he will assist Golding

"There is no doubt that Bruce will bring something to the table in terms of attracting voters," the JLP's leader, Edward Seaga, said on the Nationwide show on Power 106 last night.

But he also insisted that the JLP was picking up its own support which, added to the Golding factor, "will be a powerful force".

SEAGA... there is a long list of concurrence and common thinking

Golding's final abandonment of his third-party project, the National Democratic Movement (NDM), and a return to his old party, has been on the cards for weeks. But the proposal cleared its last hurdle yesterday when it won ringing endorsement from JLP election candidates, having been formally announced by Seaga at a strategy meeting at the party's headquarters at Belmont Road in Kingston.

"Mr Seaga, in the meeting ...indicated that Mr Golding's return had been realised after an understanding was reached over seven points of policy direction which Mr Golding had sought to have the party address, and on which Mr Seaga had had discussions with the officers and the Standing Committee of the party," the JLP's chairman, Ryan Peralto, said in a statement last night.

HENRY... doesn't believe Golding's return would impact substantially on the JLP's fortunes

At the JLP compound there was wild jubilation among party supporters as news seeped out about the information that Seaga had dropped inside.

"Positive," said a supporter from Tavern, St Andrew, who gave his name as "Sticky". "The polls must change now. I feel very happy, wonderful."

BENNETT... declined to comment

But Mike Henry, a former deputy leader, who challenged Seaga for the leadership in 2000, did not believe that Golding's return would impact substantially on the JLP's fortunes among the electorate.

"I don't think his coming back will affect our prospects at all," Henry said. "His coming back may help but we are on track... Bruce has come back on a set of principles -- a set of principles that I have adumbrated in the party and on a platform of change."

But for the NDM, Golding's move was seen as a bitter blow and an act of betrayal against the party, from whose leadership he stepped down 17 months ago, claiming that his old political baggage was crimping its growth.

The party had not done well in the recently held by-election in North East St Ann and only gained about five per cent of the votes in the 1997 general elections.

Senior NDM officials were meeting in an emergency session last night to discuss the implications of Golding's action, but one top officer and former close Golding ally branded the behaviour of his former party leader as "indecent".

Only minutes after news broke of Seaga's declaration at the closed-door meeting, Golding emerged from the Half-Way-Tree Road studios of Hot 102 FM, where he hosts a talk show, to confirm that he had been in negotiations with the JLP, but to say that he had not yet been advised that his demands had been met.

"There have been discussions, but I haven't been advised as to whether the conditions that we have discussed have been satisfied and concluded," Golding told reporters, who were camped outside the building in the pouring rain. "So until then... I can't make a comment."

But not long afterwards, Wayne Chen, a key Golding confidant, who had helped form the NDM and had been its spokesman on finance, was confirming that there was a pact.

"I have not long been informed that the heads of agreement, the seven points, have been accepted," Chen, the chairman and CEO of the SuperPlus supermarket chain, told the Observer in reference to a Memorandum of Understanding between the JLP and Golding.

Chen, and the NDM's former chairman; and academic Chris Tufton -- both of whom helped negotiate Golding's re-entry into his old party -- were expected to join Golding on the trek back to the JLP. But Chen, the Business Observer Business Leader of the Year for 1998, said that while he would back Golding, he would not be involved day-to-day in party politics.

"I will advise and will assist in the process of taking the message forward," Chen told the Observer. "But I have told Bruce that I don't have the time to be actively involved in party politics."

But Tufton indicated that he was on his way back into the JLP and that he would play an active role in the party's campaign.

Golding, 54, was chairman of the JLP and considered Seaga's heir-apparent when he left the party complaining that it was unwilling to engage his ideas for a new form of politics that was less divisive, more inclusive, more transparent and more accountable.

His departure was a major psychological blow for the JLP, coinciding as it did, with a rebellion by a dozen other senior JLP politicians, mostly from western Jamaica, who had criticised Seaga's alleged autocratic leadership style.

Most of these ex-JLP politicians followed Golding into the NDM, whose major plank was constitutional reform, including the separation of powers in a form of government similar to what exists in the United States.

In the JLP/Golding memorandum, which forms the basis of Golding's re-entry to his former party, the JLP agreed to "re-examine the issue of separation of powers" and promised that if it won the elections, that would be one of the options it would put to a referendum within two years.

However, Seaga, in his Nationwide interview, made it clear that the JLP still held to the Westminster style of parliamentary government, although Golding would have an opportunity to make a case for the structure of government he prefers.

"Mr Golding will have every opportunity to convince the party of the separation of powers," Seaga said.

When asked whether the JLP had to compromise or change its principles to accommodate Golding, Seaga replied: "No! No!"

"There is a long list of concurrence and common thinking," Seaga added. "Where there are not, we have agreed to re-examine."

Chen insisted that Golding, by returning to the JLP, had not departed from the core principles he had articulated for the past eight years and neither had he done violence to the ideals of the NDM.

"It would now be up to the NDM to decide whether the compromise is credible and that it is something they can live with," Chen said.

While the NDM's president, Hyacinth Bennett, declined to comment on the developments, another top NDM official claimed Golding helped weaken the party by a strange behaviour after resigning as president.

"We feel that Bruce has 'dissed' the party over the last 17 months and has not honoured his promise to support the party after relinquishing the presidency," he said. "The indecency of it all is that they did not even contact Hyacinth Bennett when Seaga offered Golding an independent senatorship if the JLP wins the elections."

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