Leadership the next big issue for PNP, JLP
With the general elections now out of the way, the country’s two traditional parties are reportedly pondering major personnel changes in their leadership, with the heads of both organisations giving clear indications that they are contemplating their departure.
Edward Seaga, leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) since 1974, in his post-election speech conceded that the electorate had responded in different ways to the two parties. Signalling his acceptance of the electorate’s decision, he noted that there were “many of us who have to go home and think about our future”.
But already some pundits have begun to suggest what that future should look like for Seaga.
“I believe that he may be fair to himself if he goes sooner rather than later,” said Stephen Vasciannie, professor in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies, in an interview with the Sunday Observer.
Vasciannie, however, qualified that assertion, saying he expected that Seaga would give up the leadership within two years. “He will need a year to make sure that the appropriate infrastructure is in place for succession and to give his second-tier members the opportunity to organise and to show personal development and leadership potential,” Vasciannie reasoned.
Prime Minister P J Patterson, speaking at a post-election press conference on Thursday, was more forthright than Seaga on his future options, confirming that the previous day’s poll was his final contest.
“And one of the reasons why I am emphasising that is because I believe I not only have a unique responsibility, but perhaps I believe I may have the last opportunity as a political leader in Jamaica of trying to build. a country of unity and harmony,” Patterson told journalists.
Vasciannie believes Patterson should demit office after three years – time enough, he argued, “to give him a chance to work towards the legacy that he so obviously wishes to leave behind. At the same time, he will have to leave enough time for his successor to organise for the next election. Hence, anything over three years might be unfair to his successor,” Vasciannie said.
Asked about the succession scenario within his party, former deputy leader of the JLP, Anthony Johnson, told the Sunday Observer that he expected a smooth process.
“We have a constitution which says every year we have an election for leader. The candidates then organise their campaigns and whoever gets the most votes would be declared the leader. It is, therefore, not true that the party does not handle the process well,” Johnson asserted.
But Johnson, a noted historian himself, conceded that some leadership changes within the JLP had not, in the past, been determined by major electoral contests, relying instead on achieving consensus on a particular candidate.
For instance, Donald Sangster, first deputy leader of the party from the late 1950s, and deputy prime minister, then acting prime minister during the first administration after Independence from 1962 to 1967, successfully led the party in the 1967 general elections, while Alexander Bustamante was leader of the party.
Upon Sangster’s sudden death, after only a few weeks in office, the JLP MPs voted to support the appointment of Hugh Shearer as his successor. Shearer, Johnson pointed out, was first deputy leader for the duration of his stint as prime minister, while the title of “Leader” was retained by the JLP founder, Bustamante.
Johnson said, however, that there was a significant change in 1974 when Seaga was chosen at a general conference “with near unanimity” to become the leader of the party, in what he described as a “one-sided” contest with Wilton Hill.
Bustamante, he said, led the way in endorsing the choice of Seaga.
The PNP has had two changes of party president through elections by the delegates, with Michael Manley defeating Vivian Blake to succeed the founder Norman Manley in 1969 and P J Patterson staving off the challenge of Portia Simpson in 1992 when Michael Manley retired.
David Coore, as chairman of the party in 1969, was charged with the responsibility of managing the contest between Michael Manley and Blake, which Manley won.
Reflecting on that contest, Coore said while Blake was disappointed at the outcome, he was not bitter. (Blake would, in later years, quip that he was “the best prime minister Jamaica never had!”) “As chairman of the party I had a critical role to be neutral – both candidates were my good friends but I could show no bias and after the election,” Coore said. “Viv (Blake) accepted the decision of the delegates – there were no unpleasant repercussions.”
Regarding the succession from Michael Manley to Patterson, Coore said that neither Manley nor himself did anything to influence the result of that election. “We hope that the next transition will be equally smooth,” he said.
The two parties and how they function, Coore said, reflected the personalities of their founders.
He described Manley as “the quintessential lawyer who based the party on a constitutional structure with islandwide representation and he based it on the principle of groups in every village in the island, these being the final repositories of control of the party – a deliberate construct along the lines of constitutional values”.
On the other hand, he said Bustamante formed the Labour Party “as an instrument to reflect his ideas and to promote his control of the Jamaican political scene – the leader having the all-pervading power”.
But despite the differences, Johnson rejects any suggestion that the JLP’s democratic tradition is flawed.
“If you use democracy in terms of it reflecting the wishes of the people, it is democratic,” he said.
Describing party meetings as “rambunctious with the people strongly expressing their views”, he argued that “while others might think that it should be more formal. the people still express what they want. It is a grassroots party. It is not a kind of drawing room system in which people follow according to a book. There’s a bit more to democracy than that!”
Johnson, conceding the inevitability of Seaga’s retirement sometime in the future, asserted that there were several “eminently qualified” possible successors, including the four deputy leaders – Audley Shaw, Edmund Bartlett, Derrick Smith and Olivia “Babsy” Grange.
With the recent return of Bruce Golding to the party after a much debated seven-year absence, Johnson readily accepted that Golding as a possible leader of the party “would definitely resonate with the people”.
“Golding absolutely fits the bill,” he said, adding quickly, however, that he was not necessarily stating his own support. “But he has the qualities of a leader, no doubt about it.”
Vasciannie, a key member of the National Democratic Movement when it was formed by Golding in 1995, said the question of Golding succeeding to the leadership of the JLP would be a sensitive one both for Golding himself and for Seaga.
“The longer Seaga stays, the more it will appear that he wishes to crown his own successor because a long gap will strengthen the hand of Bruce Golding,” Vasciannie observed.
On the other hand, he said that two years might not be sufficient for Golding to shake the “traitor” image of him that was once prevalent in the JLP. “So if Mr Seaga wants Golding to succeed him, he may have to hang on for a period in excess of two years,” Vasciannie suggested.
The central policy difference between Golding and the JLP remains that of constitutional reform, according to Vasciannie. “The clash then, is between presidential government a-la the United States and parliamentary government in keeping with British traditions. The reconciliation of both positions will be the most serious difficulty,” he warned.
Another significant factor, he said, was Golding’s image. Pointing out that the former NDM president’s position was “fervently anti-garrison”, Vasciannie noted that Seaga in his utterances in the mid-90s “sought to rationalise garrison communities on the basis of self-defence. These two positions do not sit well together”, he said.
Arguing that for Golding to become an effective leader of the JLP would also require him to have a seat in the House of Representatives, Vasciannie said it would be “a disaster of the first order” for him to succeed Seaga in West Kingston or to go back to his old constituency of Central St Catherine.
“Remember,” he said, “Golding claimed to have withdrawn from the leadership of the NDM because he felt that people still identified him with the ‘old-style politics’, rightly or wrongly. If he were to go to West Kingston this would be seen by many as an affirmation of the garrison approach to politics. Indeed, one suspects that even if Golding were to go to Central St Catherine, his garrison antecedents would stick to him like wet mud on a cold day! So his real option is to seek a seat with no garrison connections.”
But according to Vasciannie, even if policy differences between Golding and the JLP can be set aside in the short-term, there remain serious personal differences that will need to be addressed.
“Why, for example,” he asked “should Ed Bartlett, who has scored notable victories in the West, stand aside for someone who left the JLP for seven years? Similarly, why should Mike Henry, who remained in the trenches, abandon his leadership aspirations to Golding when in fact Golding failed to carry the NDM to any sort of victory?
“Even if Henry does not run he might give his support base to someone else,” Vasciannie warned.
When asked about his own “enhanced status” within the party, arising from the showing of the JLP in the West, Bartlett, the newly elected MP for East-Central St James, disavowed any preoccupation with the question of leadership at this time.
“My focus at this time is on building the constituency of East-Central St James and making it very strong and impregnable for the JLP, and improving on the overall strength of the party in the West,” he said.
But Bartlett did not rule out the possibility of a run for the JLP leadership at the appropriate time, stating that it would ultimately be “the call of the people and for me to respond to that call”.
Concerning Audley Shaw, Vasciannie pointed out that he had “carefully built a reputation for challenging the government where it hurts”, suggesting that he too had a strong claim.
In the run-up to and after the general elections, much public attention has been focused on the Golding factor and the prospect of his succeeding Seaga as JLP leader.
In the Observer/Stone Poll published on Sunday, October 6, 28.2 per cent of those polled expressed the view that Golding had returned to the JLP because he was hoping by that route to eventually become prime minister.
When asked whether they supported the move, 33.6 per cent answered in the affirmative and 31.9 per cent disagreed with it. Another 20 per cent of the respondents said Golding’s return did not matter, while 14.5% per cent did not have a view.
But Johnson is warning against total reliance on poll findings.
“Labour Party people who are going to vote will not necessarily rely on the polls as their total guide,” he said, pointing out that “they have their linkages and loyalties and to the extent that there are other people at particular levels and they come out and indicate their preferences, their people will likely vote accordingly.”
Against that background, he said that if the deputy leaders got together and indicated a preference for somebody else “you would probably have a contest”.
“Mr Golding has not yet stated his position and I assume he will handle all of this in an urbane and sensitive manner,” he concluded.
Golding himself, making his first public comments since the elections on Power 106’s Nationwide on Friday, said he was uncertain as to what his next move would be.
Evading a direct response on the leadership issue, he said he would, “over the next couple of weeks, work myself back into the system. then whatever role I have to play will unfurl”.
Christopher Tufton, a former chairman of the NDM under Golding’s leadership, was a key member of the team that negotiated Golding’s return to the JLP in the final weeks of the general elections and was co-ordinator for Golding’s road programme during the election campaign.
Golding headed major campaign swings through the parishes of Clarendon, Manchester, St Elizabeth, Hanover and St James, as well as some parts of St Mary and St Ann.
Tufton believes Golding’s presence served to “re-energise the party workers leading up to the elections and contributed to the selling of the message, while shoring up the constituency organisations”.
“Clearly, as part of his efforts there were some seats won and there were some seats in which the party lost by less than 200 votes – St Elizabeth South-East and South-West, and South-East St Mary. Golding also had a national profile and that helped the party nationally,” Tufton argued.
Skirting the question of Golding’s accession to the leadership of the JLP, Tufton emphasised the need for the party to examine now why it failed to “capture the imagination of the majority of the people” during the election campaign.
“In that examination there is the possibility of a number of leaders emerging at the councillor, constituency and national levels in order to make the party more attractive,” he said, emphasising the claims of the present deputy leaders.
As to when would be the right time for Seaga to retire from the leadership of the JLP, Anthony Johnson said he faced “a whole matrix of possibilities”.
“If he suddenly gets up and leaves, there are people who will say the party is in crisis and if he stays .whichever path is chosen, there will be detractors.”
Golding told the Nationwide hosts that careful management of the succession process at the appropriate time would be very important.
“Infighting is only possible and only encouraged if persons who may have ambitions are precluded from pursuing those ambitions. If you’re operating within a democratic framework, ultimately it is the delegates of the party who will determine questions of leadership. And even if there are contending personalities, ultimately we all need each other to move the organisation forward,” he said.
Regarding the situation in the PNP, Burchell Whiteman, deputy chairman of the party, is of the view that the public has already identified some early prospects in the race to succeed Patterson as party president and, by extension, prime minister, in the event that he retires before the PNP’s new term of office expires.
Chief among these possibilities, he said, are three of the party’s vice-presidents – Portia Simpson Miller, Dr Peter Phillips and Dr Karl Blythe.
He argued that their chances would be significantly enhanced by how they perform within the party and within the government in the early period of this fourth term.
Simpson Miller, he said, had now had experience in more than one area of government and he argued that she had brought good qualities to them both (the Ministry of Labour, Social Security & Sport and the Ministry of Tourism & Sport).
Regarding her performance in her present ministry – Tourism & Sport – Whiteman gave Simpson Miller high marks for “taking the Tourism Master Plan to its current stage and for the new visibility of Community Tourism as an important element of the sector”. He also praised her for her management of the tourism portfolio in the post 9/11 period.
Commenting on Phillips, Whiteman said he was “generally regarded as having succeeded wherever he has gone. At National Security he has breathed new life into the portfolio. It would be in his own interest to remain with that ministry if that is the decision of the prime minister. No matter who is going to be in charge of the party or government, national security is going to be a major issue. For him it is an advantage to be there.”
Public commentators have, in recent months, been identifying Omar Davies as a potential “dark horse” candidate.
Whiteman is not dismissing this possibility, describing the finance minister and MP for South St Andrew as “the kind of person who people would be encouraging to go forward, not only because of his grasp of government issues but because of the kind of leadership and political sense displayed in the management of his constituency”. In addition, he noted that Davies had “significant international experience”.
Concerning other potential candidates, Whiteman said the claims of General-Secretary Maxine Henry-Wilson and party chairman Robert Pickersgill should not be dismissed.
With the return of Golding to the JLP, some pundits are already identifying him and Peter Phillips as the two leading candidates for the succession to leadership in their respective parties.
For David Coore it presents the intriguing prospect of seeing two Jamaica College old boys squaring off for the right to lead the country in government. This would be in keeping with the tradition of what some have jokingly described as “the JC Mafia”, which has seen Jamaica College Alumni Norman Manley and Michael Manley heading the government and a host of other past students being at senior levels of government from both parties.
But equally tantalising for Coore is the prospect of having two women – the PNP’s Simpson Miller and the JLP’s Grange facing off for the ultimate prize.
It was, he said “a very intriguing possibility, and it may well happen”.