They are tentative in the extreme, but some of the braver ones in the People’s National Party (PNP) have started to push out their heads, indicating they are willing to challenge for leadership of the party.

So far, we know that Mr Peter Bunting is interested in the job as president of the PNP now held by Mrs Portia Simpson Miller. Dr Wykeham McNeill wants to be a vice-president in the slot being vacated by Mr Derrick Kellier. And so too Ms Lisa Hanna, the former Miss World beauty queen turned hard-headed politician.

Challenging for leadership positions, especially for the top-most job, has never been a pleasant task in Jamaican politics. That explains why the PNP has had only four presidents since its inception in the 1930s and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) only five party leaders since the 1940s, not counting the two — Messrs Donald Sangster and D C Tavares — who died shortly after assuming the position.

Compare that with the National Democratic Movement (NDM) which was headed by Mr Bruce Golding at its birth in 1995 and which has already had at least four leaders in those relatively short 21 years.

The political and emotional bloodletting that goes hand-in-hand with leadership challenges is still fresh in the minds of Jamaicans. Dr Peter Phillips was severely wounded politically when he challenged Mrs Simpson Miller’s presidency of the PNP.

On the JLP side, Mr Audley Shaw suffered a terrible mauling after he challenged Mr Andrew Holness and lost badly. The trauma usually extends down the ticket to those who offer themselves for lesser positions on the same slate; notably Dr Christopher Tufton and Mr Daryl Vaz who supported Mr Shaw.

Wary of the ugliness that has characterised previous challenges to the leadership, both Mr Bunting and Ms Hanna have been walking very gingerly, as if they were on egg shells, in making sure to say that their party leader should be allowed to set her own timetable for departure.

Since Mr Holness is a very young man in political terminology, it would be difficult for anyone in the JLP to make the argument that he should be setting his departure timetable.

Still, there are bright signs that suggest some amount of hope that leadership challenges may not always be as acrimonious as in the past. In both the PNP and the JLP, the contestants for party leadership — Dr Phillips and Mr Shaw — not only survived, but were elected to the virtual number two position as finance minister in their governments.

It is either that the political process is maturing or that both Mrs Simpson Miller and Mr Holness are more magnanimous than previously credited. Interestingly, both did not name a deputy prime minister.

They will demonstrate true magnanimity and maturity when they name their primary opponents as deputy prime minister.