In March last year when the PNP’s Peter Phillips informed the nation that the JLP government had engaged the services of a US law firm, Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, to lobby the US government with a view to circumventing the extradition of Christopher “Dudus” Coke, the prime minister jumped out of his seat and in a confident expression of alarm, accused Dr Phillips of seeking media publicity and headlines.

By May the prime minister had had more than just a personality conversion. In fact, the story, according to Bruce Golding’s recall, had taken a 180-degree turn, but added to that turn was an odd twist. There was in fact an engagement of the law firm, but according to the prime minister, “I sanctioned the initiative, knowing that such interventions have, in the past, proved to be of considerable value in dealing with issues involving governments of both countries. I made it clear, however, that this was an initiative to be undertaken by the party, not by or on behalf of the government.”

Let us do our own recall. According to the prime minister’s May statement, on the date in March when Peter Phillips had made the “accusation”, he knew of it, but because Dr Phillips had suggested that it was a government-to-government engagement, the prime minister was able to immediately summon the thespian skills of the seasoned politician, not just to counter Phillips on a technicality, but to lead a whole nation astray.

That is the distinction which seems to be lost on many members of the JLP Cabinet who believe that people like me have been employing too much time criticising the government on the specific matter while other areas of success have been in the making and are being ignored.

Early evidence given by a government official in the enquiry would seem to indicate that if the engagement was done on a JLP basis, then it surely began deep in the corridors of the JLP government. Assuming that the prime minister is still sticking to his story that the engagement was purely a JLP one – that is, it was the party which engaged the law firm, we are anxiously looking forward to determining the process by which the engagement changed its character, leached out of the confines of the Office of the Prime Minister, the Attorney General’s Chambers, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and entered the gates of JLP party central at Belmont Road.

After listening to the testimony of Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Evadne Coye, a major plank of the enquiry can now be shut down, the taxpayers can be saved some money and all that we will need to determine after that is the source of the funding of the fees paid to Manatt.

The “what ifs” are many. What if, on the conclusion of the enquiry and its tabling in Parliament, it is determined that the prime minister took us wide in March (oh, we know that already), took us wider in May in his more complete response to Peter Phillips and the nation and, horror of horrors, took us around the mulberry bush in his hour of contrition as he apologised to the nation?

Certainly, if all of that should occur, no one would need to tell the prime minister that his resignation would be in order. And in hindsight, that would tell us that at the moment when the prime minister made the decision to launch an enquiry into the matter, he would have done so not of his own volition but because of the sheer press of public pressure.

But what about the other “what if?” What if the prime minister is telling the truth? For that to happen, while it would not necessarily need a time traveller to snatch back that meeting held in Washington DC among Jamaican government officials, US officials and a lawyer from Manatt, others involved would need to show not just when the main thrust of the representation segued from JLP administration talks with US officials to JLP (the party alone) in talks with Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, but the very moment when a clean cut was made from the JLP administration to the JLP standing on its own in its engagement of/with Manatt.

That other “what if” seems unlikely to my way of seeing it and if it doesn’t materialise, that would immediately pave the way for the prime minister’s resignation and his replacement as leader of the JLP and prime minister.

The best that the JLP could do now, for its own sake, is find some means to throw a real sturdy spanner in the works of the enquiry, to the point of not just dragging it out but bringing it to a standstill for many months. Certainly, the operatives would have had much experience in that, considering the time spent in dragging out the extradition of Coke.

If that could be achieved (I find it unlikely) and it re-starts, say, late in the year, a snap election would be the JLP’s best bet of achieving something perversely positive and Machiavellian out of the exercise, considering that roadworks under the JDIP would be at their peak then.

At the same time, we must not forget that the prime minister has another card up his sleeve, that of a Cabinet reshuffle where some “bright lights” who have been deemed politically unsafe could be repositioned outside of main Cabinet duties and others brought in.

The fact is, the JLP administration has made errors but it has done some good as governments go. If more young, competent people are brought into the forefront of the governing process while the PNP is still stuck with the same lame team of its last run, the contrast should earn the JLP some positives.

Whether those positives would be enough to take it to another nailbiting victory as in 2007 is another story worth examining in more detail as the enquiry unfolds.

observemark@gmail.com