IN the latter part of last week a large part of the general message that the PNP was carrying to its constituents and party faithful was that they should begin to prepare themselves for elections because it is more than likely that a fallout from the Dudus trial — should names be called — will have a most negative impact on the JLP’s chances at the next general election.

They probably never did plan for the Americans revoking the visa of Energy Minister James Robertson and his wife and the subsequent resignation of the minister, a powerful JLP deputy leader. With the minister reporting to the press that no reason for his visa revocation was given, the fact of his resignation from the Cabinet must bring about speculation that the JLP leadership knows something that we do not know.

First, to me, the visa revocation, without an explanation, could not, by itself, require a resignation. It is either that an explanation was given in private which brought about the resignation, or there are still outstanding treaty matters where the government has been foot-dragging and an important message needed to be sent.

Second, tied in to the latter part of the first consideration, it could be that the last two years have shown the Americans that the JLP administration is not one that they are comfortable doing business with, and some amount of “proactivity” has been exercised by the US to lead us to begin the breaking-off process between ourselves and the JLP.

It is either that the energy minister is the easiest target, or his visa revocation and subsequent resignation from his substantive posts are justified in the eyes of those who are in receipt of more information than I have.

If those reasons are such that the public will not be able to have the benefit of a full and truthful explanation, then the JLP will have to accept the negative fallout which will naturally arise from the mountain of speculation which is likely to follow.

Not that there has been one brief season of political peace for the JLP administration since its win in September 2007, but even in the best of times, it has not handled them very well. The explanation by Minister Robertson’s lawyer that the 2010 Ian Johnson asylum-seeking affidavit alleging major wrongdoing by Robertson could have been a cause of the visa revocation can only be accepted 100 per cent if we accept that the US Immigration Services operate 180 degrees apart from its diplomatic arm.

It is of course a fact that a negative report on a Jamaican entering the USA’s borders can cause a landing refusal. That is even more so if one is a private citizen whose name does not open any pages on Google. I cannot say how the collective mindset of the US State Department/the diplomatic service operates, but knowing that the US operatives in Jamaica know more about us than we believe they do, I cannot see the US visa revocation of a Jamaica government minister as happening outside of an action carefully considered behind closed doors.

It is my belief, as I stated before, that the US has decided to wash its hands of this JLP administration.

The reshuffling of the PNP Opposition Shadow Cabinet at just about the same time is much too coincidental to be just “a coincidence”. Something has been transmitted to the PNP — more than what has been carried by the media, and as parties in Opposition are wont to do, the PNP is trying its best to make itself more politically attractive. How it can do that with pretty much the same team of the last administration is the great puzzle.

If we buy the PNP’s argument that revelations from the trial of Dudus will have a negative impact on the JLP, we are forced to conclude that those negatives, in hard numbers of likely voters, will yield positives for the PNP in its potential voting support next year. The shifting of Omar Davies from covering the finance portfolio to transport and works in the PNP’s Shadow Cabinet is more an open indication that the PNP is trying to plug that last, vital loophole — that of making itself attractive to local private-sector funding.

It is known that opinion polls can only be an accurate representation of the actual to the extent that both parties are adequately funded. It has been known for some time that since some time in 2006, the PNP has not been able to attract the level of funding needed to win elections. This Shadow Cabinet shift, highly imperfect as I see it, is, however, one major attempt to increase its election readiness.

The Manatt/Dudus report, expected to be harmful to the JLP’s causes, along with fallout from the Dudus trial, will be nails in the JLP’s political coffin. If the new visa applications of Robertson and his wife are not considered and dealt with positively during that period, the negatives will pile up against the administration in the press, and more important, in the minds of potential voters. Come election time next year, despite the JDIP funds, those marks against the JLP are likely to lead to only one result, and that is, a PNP win.

Unfortunately for the JLP, the Jamaican voting population has not, in two decades, given it the benefit of the doubt in crucial matters. Most of the hard-working people in the JLP, including James Robertson in his party roles, are of the belief that their victory will lie in the rural areas where front-page news items are assimilated differently than those of us with too much time on our hands to worry about non-bread-and-butter matters.

In this respect, the PNP and the JLP will be going off in different directions in their effort to win. The Opposition PNP will be hoping that the Robertson visa matter will be still outstanding, the Manatt report will be doing its damage and that Dudus will call the names of “big” people in the JLP. The JLP will be moving to shore up its base in the rural areas while hoping that the negatives in the PNP’s dual-citizen games will allow it to snatch two added crucial seats.

Somehow, in all of that, a sense of déjà vu will descend on us — time and time again, like a spinning wheel.

For the JLP’s sake, though, it needs to solve the puzzle of Minister Robertson’s visa revocation pronto. The trajectory from the delays in the Dudus extradition to the present is one major fault line in political speculation that the JLP cannot afford to have outstanding for too long. It has the potential to put the JLP back where it was in the 1989 to 2007 period.

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