PRIME Minister Golding’s agreement to a commission of enquiry into the Christopher “Dudus” Coke/Manatt, Phelps and Phillips affair signals an imminent change of leadership, political commentators say.

In a series of interviews with the Sunday Observer last week, the commentators who include attorney-at-law Dr Paul Ashley and Observer columnist, Mark Wignall, had differing views as to whether Golding would step down or call snap elections.

But either way, they say, the writing is on the wall.

In a brief statement to Parliament last week, Golding announced plans to set up the commission into the circumstances leading to the extradition of former Tivoli Gardens strongman, Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, and the subsequent controversy over the engagement of United States law firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. However, Dr Ashley said the commission would not necessarily unearth any new information and that snap elections would be a “master stroke” to make the enquiry, and all other questions go away, at least in the short run.

Ashley said Jamaica’s current situation is almost a mirror image of the country under Edward Seaga in the early 1980s when the three-year-old government became unpopular after introducing austere measures to the Jamaican economy, which had collapsed in the mid-to-late 1970’s.

In 1983, Seaga called snap elections and secured a second term on the back of the bloody Grenada revolution in which Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was killed.

“The Government has lost so much credibility already. The Prime Minister has lost so much credibility as well. Nobody listens to him anymore and with (the party’s annual) conference coming up, announcing a general election is the only thing he can do to get Labourites listening to him again,” Ashley said.

He pointed to the competition for key offices being mounted in the party ahead of the mid-November annual conference and said it was a strategic move to position Golding’s supporters.

“Look at the challengers, they are chiefly supporters of Golding who rode on his coat tails into the JLP from the National Democratic Movement (NDM). They have no locus standi in the party without Golding,” Ashley suggested.

Among the contestants are Information Minister Daryl Vaz, who is challenging long-time general secretary Karl Samuda, and Agriculture Minister Dr Christopher Tufton who will be going up against Dr Horace Chang for the deputy leadership of Area Council Four.

Party insiders say Vaz’ schallenge is “punishing Samuda for not supporting Golding in his impasse with Harold Brady in the extradition affair”.

Tufton was chairman of the NDM when Golding was president. Vaz was also an NDM member and organiser under Golding.

“For Golding to have any credibility or standing in the party, he has to have his people in place. It’s a gamble he must take. He might win, or lose, but he cannot afford for anymore damaging information to be in the hands of the PNP leading into a general elections in 2012 so, going early is his best shot,” Dr Ashley stated.

Wignall agrees with the view that Golding is in the JLP’s political departure lounge.

“Yes, I suppose a snap general election could in one move make the commission of enquiry and other questions go away. But as far as my sources indicate, Golding is in the departure lounge, he wants to go and he can’t go quickly enough,” he said.

He, too, pointed to the key political challenges being staged ahead of the party’s annual conference, suggesting: “Conference is going to be explosive this year.”

Wignall said he could not see Golding “hanging on for much longer as leader of the JLP” based on what he has heard.

“Either a general election or announcing his resignation as JLP leader would take him out of the hot seat and one or the other is coming,” he believes.

Like Ashley, Wignall believes the prime minister has lost “tremendous political credibility” and a snap election could “take him out of his misery one way or the other”.

Wignall said Golding has been battered by the social, economic and political storm which has ravaged much of the world since 2007. He added that the breathing space the Government received as a result of the Jamaica Debt Exchange programme was smashed by the Coke extradition embarrassment.

However, respected head of Market Research Services Limited, Don Anderson, said he was not sure the country was ready for a general election.

“I am not sure the country can take a general election right now,” he said, but cautioning that “with politicians and politics you may never know.”

Anderson believes there will be an enquiry, noting that foregoing the enquiry and jumping instead to an election would leave a sour taste in everyone’s mouth.

“I don’t believe the Prime Minister wants to go out of politics with anything hanging over his head, although with politicians you never know,” Anderson told the Sunday Observer.

National campaign organiser for the PNP, Dr Peter Phillips, the man who lead the Opposition’s call for the enquiry, refused to entertain the possibility of an election.

“I expect a commission of enquiry. Fundamental to the whole matter is a commission that will expose what happened so that they will never happen again, because clearly errors were made,” said Phillips, who first raised the matter in the House on March 15.

The 1983 snap elections caught the PNP by surprise and they boycotted the polls on grounds that Seaga had breached an agreement not to contest anymore elections on the outdated voters list. Their non-participation left the two houses with all 60 JLP members of parliament and 21 senators.

Haunted by that, PNP chairman Robert Pickersgill said this time the PNP is on high alert.

“We are watching!” he said Friday.