THE commission of enquiry to determine who it was that hired Manatt, Phelps and Phillips to defend Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke dominated the news for a major part of the year. During the proceedings of that enquiry, attorney KD Knight told Bruce Golding to pack his bags and go, which was repeated at the People’s National Party (PNP) annual conference in September.

The PNP surged ahead in the opinion polls, but in the following week Bruce Golding announced his intention to resign as prime minister. The bigwigs in the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) strategically threw their weight behind Andrew Holness and on October 23, Holness was sworn in as prime minister of Jamaica.

With the JLP gaining the ascendancy in the polls, the pressure was on the new prime minister to call an election, which is being held today. But the carefully crafted image of Andrew Holness as the young, energetic and efficient leader with bright ideas has begun to wear thin. In the meantime, the Opposition PNP has strategically run a campaign on the smaller picture which is about the candidates, while the JLP concentrated on the bigger picture, which is about the issues.

Traditionally, the PNP worked on two fronts: confronting the issues while organising on the ground. It was the only way that the PNP could win an election because the JLP had the popular Sir Alexander Bustamante, while the lawyer Norman Manley who led the PNP was best at speaking to juries in High Court.

So the PNP had to organise to win. Norman Manley emphasised this particularly after the massive defeat of the PNP in 1944. He returned to this theme after the PNP defeat in 1962 when he told the PNP to “organise and organise”.

By the way, no matter what you may have read elsewhere, even if in an official publication, the JLP won 23 seats in 1944 to the PNP’s four, while independents won five. Norman Manley himself lost his bid for Eastern St Andrew.

Incidentally, in 1944 the PNP ran in only 19 of the 32 seats available then. One independent, Fred ‘Slaveboy’ Evans who won the Eastern Westmoreland seat, immediately joined the PNP which improved that party’s tally to five seats. By 1949, the PNP lost again, but gained more votes than the JLP.

Although the PNP won power in 1955, by 1958 the party was behind the JLP as was seen in the results of the election to the federal parliament in April that year. It was then that Norman Manley hired the 23-year-old PJ Patterson to organise western Jamaica, and when he reported that he had finished, Norman Manley called a snap election in July 1959 and won a second term in office.

In 1962, the JLP returned to power in an election called prior to political Independence. The JLP won again in 1967, but the PNP complained that the election was rigged as hundreds of thousands of voters were disenfranchised and some of the constituencies were unfairly carved in favour of the JLP. In 1972, Michael Manley led the PNP to victory and the PNP won again in 1976 when Michael Manley had to swear that he was in fact Michael Manley as he had no identification.

Police Commissioner Owen Ellington, taking the oath at last Thursday’s voting day for police, soldiers and election day workers, was reminiscent of that.

In 1980, Edward Seaga led the JLP to win by a massive landslide. In 1983, he called a snap election, but the PNP refused to contest it because the voters’ list was three years old. The JLP won all 60 seats.

Michael Manley led the PNP again to victory in 1989. He was succeeded by PJ Patterson in 1992, who led the PNP to a second-term victory in 1993, a third in 1997, and a fourth term in 2002. In 2006, Portia Simpson Miller succeeded Patterson as prime minister. In 2007, Bruce Golding led the JLP to victory and was sworn in as prime minister some days later. Golding resigned in October and was succeeded by Andrew Holness.

In Jamaica, issues do not win elections. It is all about organisation and mobilisation. The plain truth is that whoever can get more voters into the polling stations between 7:00 this morning and 5:00 this evening will be the winner. So election day is more like a mix between track, cricket and football at four- or five-year intervals (like the Olympics).

What concerns me is the corrupt practices such as the “ink trick” which I have heard about. No amount of international observers can stop candidates paying supporters of their rivals not to vote by paying them to dip their fingers in voting ink. It then becomes impossible for them to go to the polling stations to vote because their fingers are already stained.

Let us all pray for a free and fair election. And also, please have a happy new year.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com