BEFORE the advent of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company in 1998, there were not enough buses and “robots” to meet the needs of the commuting public in the Corporate Area. Many times passengers would ride on the buses with their bodies protruding outside the door. Sometimes the conductor would ask the passengers hanging on the outside to get inside the bus as he feared prosecution for protrusion. But no matter how much he begged them to get inside the bus, they would not move. Then the “ducta” would shout “Police!” and the passengers would quickly pack the inside huddling tighter than sardines, so that the door could be shut.

The huddling together of Jamaica Labour Party members of parliament behind prospective prime minister, Andrew Holness, reminds me of those “bad old days” in public transport. And at this point it looks like the JLP’s huddling together for victory just might work in their favour. Andrew Holness is already “cranking up” the JLP’s organisational machinery by telling JLP supporters to get ready for elections. Apparently the JLP is awash with campaign funds.

Are many of the young adults who are shouting, “Andrew, Andrew, Andrew”, registered to vote? I do not know. However, Holness has a united party behind him even if they are only huddling together for the election. But when Portia Simpson Miller was prime minister, she had no such luxury. The voters’ list was not quite ready. The PNP needed money for its campaign. And the PNP was fractured after the four-candidate race for party president in 2006.

With all the factors that led to the PNP gaining a landslide victory in 1972, (the popular Michael Manley leading the PNP, an imaginative PNP campaign with superb organisers like DK Duncan, and an islandwide discontentment with the Hugh Shearer-led JLP government), would the PNP landslide victory have happened had there not been a split in the JLP Cabinet as reported as headline news in the Gleaner in July 1971?

At the JLP conference late in 1971, Hugh Shearer tried to bring the warring factions together by having Wilton Hill and Robert Lightbourne on the one hand arm in arm with Edward Seaga on the other. But the expression on Seaga’s face as seen on TV suggested that he was not enjoying the contrived camaraderie. It is mind-boggling to realise that prospective prime minister Andrew Holness was not even born yet. He was born in 1972.

Bruce Golding’s resignation was a political masterstroke in more ways than one. Apart from paving the way for the popular Andrew Holness, it is also a fact that former prime ministers all over the world immediately become popular after they demit office. But a greater masterstroke was done by PJ Patterson after resigning from the Cabinet where he served as deputy prime minister following the “Shell Waiver Scandal”.

Shortly after resigning from the Cabinet, Patterson said, “I shall return”. He in fact did so when he was elected PNP president and became prime minister. Patterson also won a snap election in the following year after he was satisfied that the PNP had a majority of voters on the list. Edward Seaga, who as prime minister called the 1983 general election on a three-year-old voters’ list that had given the JLP its 1980 landslide victory, complained bitterly in 1993 that the voters’ list was not ready. And Seaga protested until the director of elections resigned.

But the disunity in the JLP also worked in Patterson’s favour. Towards the end of 1992, the PNP was heading for defeat after one term as government until disunity broke out in the JLP again. The so-called “gang of five” problem surfaced in 1990. It was patched up in 1991, but in 1992 Pearnel Charles ran for the JLP deputy leader’s post and the move was opposed by the leader, Edward Seaga. This divided the JLP even further and turned the public away from them. In the 1993 snap election, the PNP won 52 seats out of 60, but in a very low poll.

In the 1997 election, the then Bruce Golding-led National Democratic Movement was said to have divided the votes, the organisational effort and campaign funds of the JLP, which resulted in a third term for the Patterson-led PNP. In 2002, the PNP won a fourth term only because of the unpopularity of JLP leader Edward Seaga and the heavy PNP organisation in full gear after the surprise victory of the JLP’s Shahine Robinson in the March 2001 by-election in Northeast St Ann. But in 2007, Bruce Golding led the JLP to victory as many Jamaicans wanted a change and the PNP’s organisation was not “firing on all cylinders”.

The PNP’s traditional focus is its manifesto and the JLP’s traditional focus is its leader. This has its roots in the iron leadership of Sir Alexander Bustamante. But from the day Bustamante left active politics, there has been contention in the JLP over the leadership. In light of the above, can Andrew Holness continuously hold the JLP together in unity? We will see.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com