IN a column written in 2005 I asked the People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) to publicly declare that they had no links to the criminal gangs which were then running riot in the old capital of Spanish Town. Nothing was heard from either party. With the death of ‘Bulbie’, the criminal leader of the criminal Clansman gang, all hell had broken loose in Spanish Town as the dregs of garrison politics rose up and slapped the nation in its face.

If we allow our memories to stretch a little we will remember that in the 1997 election campaign, Bulbie was a very busy man in assisting the efforts of the PNP to win the elections in areas outside of Spanish Town. He was wanted from 1995 yet no policeman considered it his duty to arrest him. It is quite likely that if Bulbie had been arrested in 1997, the arresting officer would have lost his job.

Do we remember the PNP’s Heather Robinson? PNP to the core, Robinson walked away from active, representational PNP politics when she declared that she was not prepared to ‘hug up gunmen’ in reference to Bulbie who wanted an alliance with her and the broader PNP politics.

When she took the moral high ground and cleansed her soul by discarding the dregs still cluttering up the PNP, she received the support from just one person in the PNP. By virtue of the loud silence which resonated throughout the PNP when she refused to hug up gunmen, was threatened, had political workers close to her shot dead and then made the final step to leave representational politics, it told the nation that from PJ Patterson, who was then the prime minister, right down to the PNP election worker, the party was, at varying levels, immersed in rotten and criminal politics which was serving it very well.

Heather Robinson warned us, warned PJ Patterson, warned her colleagues. With the immense pressure that is now heaped on prime minister Golding for his delays in coming clean on the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips (MPP) matter, apart from Dr Peter Phillips, security minister in the last PNP administration, I have not heard a definitive word from any in the leadership of that party that, like Heather Robinson, they are not prepared to hug up gunmen.

Like Bruce Golding in his NDM dispensation, the PNP’s Peter Phillips is the only other active politician to have come out openly and admitted that the politics, as practised in Jamaica, has been divisive, destructive and has held back social and economic progress in this country. It appears to me that that is the main reason why Dr Phillips has been given the latitude to express strong criticism of the prime minister’s handling of the MPP matter.

This is an important point to consider as the PNP, for mainly narrow political reasons, puts Prime Minister Golding under pressure and has called for his resignation. Question: why have we not heard a condemnation of garrison politics from the leader of the Opposition, Portia Simpson Miller?

In terms of voting patterns, Simpson Miller’s South West St Andrew constituency has the most complete garrison flavour of any of the 60 constituencies islandwide in terms of the percentage of votes going to the PNP. Another question: can the opposition leader afford to condemn garrison politics even as she calls for the prime minister’s resignation? My answer, no she cannot, simply because there must be operatives in place to guarantee those votes even if the real danger of garrison-style voting is mainly a psychology which demonises the ‘other side’. What this means is, if left to themselves, the electors in SW St Andrew would likely still vote overwhelmingly for the PNP because, as poor and wretched as their circumstances may be under many years of voting PNP, they have been brainwashed into that position and cannot act differently. It’s just like religion.

Paying respect to the enforcer

Many of us who have voted PNP and JLP over the years have used raw politics in our judgement of our favourite politicians and their links with community enforcers, whether direct or peripheral.

And many of us have little idea how easy it is for young and eager politicians, wanting to serve their country, to get sucked into the politics of thugs, garrison-style voting and other sub-cultural activities. For sure there are those who seek it out but I will submit, at the risk of being harshly criticised, that the majority of politicians entering representational politics do not actively seek out the marriage, but somehow the ring of engagement tends to follow them around until it becomes much too bothersome to resist the offer.

The most compelling reason? “Boss, di odder side have nuff man and nuff gun. Yu nuh wan win, boss?”

It’s always the other side.

I am certain that even though Peter Phillips seemed to have cleansed his political soul, even now he must have wished that he could present a really compelling reason for having attended the funeral of the late Willie Haggart, a man who had no ties to angels.

But the former finance minister in the PNP administration Dr Omar Davies, himself the holder of a garrison seat, did attend the funeral too. In 2005 when I sat with him for an interview, this is the reason he gave for having attended Haggart’s funeral.

“I attended the funeral services for Willie Haggart because he was an active member of the political constituency for which I am the member of parliament. His family and business are an important part of the community. I had done my own checks with the police and there were no outstanding charges or allegations about Mr Haggart. Others have since claimed otherwise. I had knowledge of none of those things.

“Even so, the political process is of necessity one that seeks to represent the constituency as a whole, it is necessarily inclusive. We are not seeking to build elitist systems that are for some and not for others. We believe, and the international experiences these days are bearing this out, that there is far more to be gained by inclusiveness in the political process rather than excluding some. I have declared that I do not hug up criminals; they do not have a role in my political programme. I abide by those sentiments. If there are outstanding matters against someone, and if the community associates them as acting against its interest in a manner that breaks the law, that is a matter for the police. The political process that I have anything to do with will not shield them or will not provide legitimacy for them. Those matters must be settled by the courts of law, to the satisfaction of all. If there is no such thing, however, they cannot be excluded simply because they do not find favour with others.”

You be the judge of his own words.

The sad part about garrison politics is that if the holder of the seat wants to hold the seat, he or she is forced to do ‘business’ with these voting centres of influence, these men with armed militias. So, although the politician may want to be clean, the system is so rotten that the linkage becomes a normal part of the specific constituency’s politics. Deep in his heart he knows the danger of the link, knows that it is criminal, but the only way he or she can show direct opposition to it is to walk away from it and leave representational politics. Is that any solution?

So, the first step in the solution to garrison politics is the understanding that there must be open and loud agreement across the political spectrum that ALL politicians will sever their links with voting enforcers. It cannot be some do it, some don’t, because those who do it will surely lose their seats.

Like the chicken and the egg, it has been accepted for so long in Jamaica that politics must have its sub-cultural linkage that some politicians even boast about their connections and their ‘boys’.

Added stress on the prime minister

There are times when I feel very stressed, when I worry about the happenings of my loved ones and the state of my country.

There are many moments when I believe that Jamaica is headed on a path to nothingness because of the rampant, violent criminality and the ease with which it seems to be taking on an exponential growth. It is almost as if the criminality is a live entity feeding on itself and growing more powerful as each day passes.

To make matters worse, the political leadership seems unable to stem the tide of our country’s rush into global infamy.

The prime minister has brought added stress on himself by what I believe is a gamble that has been extracting rather than paying political dividends by his statement in the House last Tuesday. It is still my belief that the prime minister knew nothing about the matter but decided to claim ownership, because that is what leaders do.

But did he overplay his hand? In my last column I pointed out that in a state-to-state treaty matter, a political party in Jamaica has no constitutional standing in any dispute which could arise.

In commenting on the prime minister’s admitting that he had sanctioned the engagement of MPP but in his role as JLP leader, Professor David Wong via the Caribbean Online Forum said, “If we entertain the proposition that Mr Golding was speaking truthfully and not attempting to practise deception in his statement to Parliament, then he appears to be a very incompetent prime minister. However, the maintained position of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips that they were acting on behalf of the Government of Jamaica would become totally credible because who else would be a legitimate client for them to represent in this matter? How could they represent the JLP per se, which has no legal standing, in a state-to-state treaty between Jamaica and the USA?

“Is it credible that a man of Mr Golding’s reputed intellect and experience could confuse himself about his roles as leader of the JLP and prime minister of Jamaica? If it is, then Mr Golding should get a minder to keep him straight on who he is supposed to be on each occasion. But, in that case, it would seem neater to make the minder of the prime minister the prime minister himself.”

The airwaves and the print media have been flooded with anti-Golding sentiments and so is the mood on the streets. My inbox has been ‘pinging’ repeatedly and it may sound politically sacrilegious for me to say that I genuinely feel sorry for him because his stress levels must be off the meter.

One female reader said, “I voted for the JLP in the last general election. Words cannot express my disappointment with Mr Golding. Tears flowed when I listened to him yesterday. I really thought that, like Mrs Lightbourne, he knew nothing about the captioned affair. I thought people around him arranged the deal without his knowledge. My God! How could Mr Golding do this? I believe he should resign and call a general election. If the people put him back into power, so be it.

“Going forward, I could never believe a word he says. I weep for my country! I know I will not be voting at the next election.”

Another who has decided to call it quits in Jamaica said, “It hurts… as a Jamaican seeing what is going in our beloved country. The PM misrepresenting the truth on the Manatt Phillips/Dudus issue. My questions among many more are:

“What message is the PM sending to youngsters growing up regarding truthfulness in responding to a question? Twist the truth and hide behind semantics and Standing Orders? OK, the issue is a party issue… so what was the solicitor general doing last year inviting MPP to the meeting with the State Dept?

“If there are in fact e-mails between the solicitor general and MPP on this issue, was the attorney general informed of this process and if not, then the SG should resign forthwith. How can the Government (not the party) be giving contracts to Dudus’ company and then the Government does not have an address for him to serve him a summons? Let’s see what happens to MPP in the US or the US Government’s next response on this matter… they have started to shun the country despite pronouncements to the contrary. Watch out for a significant visit to the region next month which should have been to Jamaica but now it has been switched to a stable sister isle in the region.”

Many of the responses cannot be reprinted in a newspaper because of the invectives that have been hurled Golding’s way.

The criticisms tend to centre on his delays in answering, his strong initial responses, his back-pedalling and worse, his perceived arrogance while reversing his argument.

If he had returned the day after Peter Phillips’ questioning with a resignation of one of his ministers, his troubles would not have disappeared but he would have appeared forthright, leader-like and with a little less on his plate.

In the interim, I would like to suggest to the Opposition PNP that although it is perfectly within its right to criticise the prime minister, there exists a little truism about stones, tossing them and glass houses. It would be good for its members to use the time to rebuild by using bricks.

As a start, they can begin on the outhouses.

observemark@gmail.com