OFFICIALS of the People’s National Party (PNP) are trumpeting a slew of contributions the party has made to the national, regional and international political landscape in its 75 years of existence.

Describing the contribution as significant, former Prime Minister PJ Patterson said the PNP has influenced the formation of many other political parties and helped to shape the direction of some of those in the region.

“The party has always been at the forefront of the fight against injustice, whether it is apartheid, colonialism or existing economic order,” Patterson told a group of Jamaica Observer senior journalists during a special sitting of the Observer Monday Exchange this week at his St Andrew home.

The former PNP president said there are a number of political parties within the Caribbean that share a close connection with the PNP.

“Not all of them are necessarily members of Socialist International, but we regard them as fraternal parties and they regard us as a party to which they look for help and admiration,” he said.

As such, as part of the PNP’s 75th anniversary celebrations, Patterson, co-chair of the committee organising events to mark the milestone, said the party is looking at hosting symposiums to examine what the parties committed to a progressive agenda can do collectively.

“So, at some point we want to have a gathering where we can discuss the progressive agenda for the region, and the PNP sees itself as an integral part [of that],” Patterson said, adding that, while this might not be done by the party’s September 18 birthday, it will be before the end of the year.

Pointing to specific contributions, PNP and organising committee member Delano Franklyn credited the party with raising the social consciousness of Jamaicans during the 1970s.

The party’s contribution to Universal Adult Suffrage, Franklyn said, is not something that can be underestimated, and neither should the contribution to the country’s education system, both in the 1957-58 period and the early 1970s.

“In the Norman Manley period, more than 500 Acts and regulations were introduced… and during the 1970s social legislation was introduced, particularly those affecting workers in Jamaica,” he said.

He further credited the PNP with infrastructural transformation and revolutionary development in the area of information technology in Jamaica.

“It was the Government of the day which renegotiated that contractual arrangement that existed with the then telephone company, which afforded the country to be literally opened up to the IT landscape,” he said.

The Scientific Research Council, the College of Arts, Science and Technology (now the University of Technology, Jamaica), the GC Foster College, and the National Stadium are some of the developments under a PNP-led Government.

As for the party’s regional contribution, Franklyn said the PNP has led on a number of policy issues as they relate to Caricom.

He noted that it was the PNP Government, in 1972, that joined with three others from the region to allow for relationship with Cuba and China and make for transition to what is now Caricom.

As for its international contribution, Franklyn said it was the PNP, led by founding leader Norman Manley, which led the fight from the region against apartheid in South Africa.

“We were the first country this side of the world to institute any kind of embargo against South Africa… so we have had international reach,” Franklyn said.

He argued also that the role the party played as government in the South South dialogue, in impacting other political parties in the region, is also something that just cannot be underestimated.

Meanwhile, as part of 75th anniversary celebration, the PNP said it intends to establish a museum at its headquarters.

“We want to encourage comrades here and overseas to send in actual memorabilia, photographs, cards, letters, etc, so we can get a sense of the story, because it is through people that the stories happen,” organising committee member Imani Duncan-Pryce explained, adding that they will be archiving items to have a living story.

Additionally, a number of research papers being collated in a publication by Franklyn will also be available to chronicle the party’s story.