Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The chickens have come home to roost in the People’s National Party (PNP). For donkey’s years many in our local media contrived, if not conspired, to cement a narrative that the PNP was a unique political animal. The country was told ad nauseam that schisms in the PNP were treated as private family matters. The rhetoric said there were multiple, true, tried, tested and deeply rooted internal structures in Norman Manley’s party which were super adhesives.

I have consistently argued in this space and on the radio that such was unadulterated hogwash. I have been proved right.

Recall these recent headlines in this newspaper: ‘PNP used people’; ‘Councillor says party destroyed self-worth, pride of J’cans and used them as pawns in a game’. The story said, among other things:

“Outspoken People’s National Party (PNP) councillor Venesha Phillips has blamed her party for deliberately destroying the self-worth and pride of Jamaicans and using them as pawns in a game.

“The Papine councillor made the charge on Sunday during a ‘reasoning session’ at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston where members of the organisation were asked to express their views about the party as the organisation seeks to reposition itself and move on from its recent loss in the February 25 General Election.

“Comrades who attended the inaugural forum, dubbed ‘Comrades Grassroot Reasoning’, were asked to answer two questions: ‘The PNP, who are and what are we?’ and ‘Have we been true to our cause?’

“Phillips, in her answer to the latter question, claimed that the PNP has not been true to its cause.

“ ‘We have not really been true to the cause, because self-worth and pride have been gutted from our people and deliberately so.

“ ‘Our people today are not recipients of empowerment, but instead they have become pawns used in the games by those who wish to create the PNP that they want to exist in,’ she said.

“Phillips claimed that the party has used money to control and manipulate the people.

“ ‘… So, Comrades, we have moved away from when Michael Manley (former party leader and prime minister) gave us that sense of purpose that we are not for sale, and today we are for sale because today every man have them price.’

“Phillips charged that money has been used to manipulate the people because they have not been able to afford some basic items.

“ ‘…Instead of empowering them… we use money as a weapon and we have brought our people to their knees just so we can establish our own cause,’ said Phillips.

“She added: ‘We have not been true to the cause because we have allowed those who would want to break our people so that they can exalt themselves, we have allowed them that space to do it.’ ” (Jamaica Observer, April 26, 2016)

This is not a novel admission.

Recall that Deacon Ronald Thwaites, ex-minister of education, told the country some years ago that “the PNP has presided over the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich since slavery”. Rural folks, in their philosophical brilliance, warn that, “When fish come from the river bottom and tell you that crocodile down there; believe him.”

Lines from a seminal creation of Caribbean lyrical genius, Slinger Francisco, better known as the Mighty Sparrow, are apropos:

“England was a mighty place many years gone by. Now England is a troubled place, please don’t ask me why.

“To quote an Old English Man, whose name is Sir Jack Union. He told me in song, London Bridge is falling down.”

Last week more of the innards of the real PNP gushed out. Hundreds in the country who were slaves to political coma have been awakened to the reality that the PNP’s top brass are merely a ragtag bunch of angry men and women.

These comments by former part-time agriculture minister, Derrick Kellier, is an autobiography of a PNP that is paralysed by the reality that its self-acclaimed political invincibility was tantamount to shadows and dust. Many in the PNP know only to suckle from State resources. Some are mortified that the political breast milk of the public purse has been pulled from their mouths. They now face an uncertain political wilderness without the nipple bottles of the State.

Kellier’s words are instructive. I wonder if Reverend Gary Harriott, general secretary of the Jamaica Umbrella Group of Churches, would categorise them as prophetic?

“ ‘Our political machinery has broken down badly and that’s why we are where we are today… we will have to climb Mount Everest to get back to where we were,’ Kellier told delegates at the party’s Regional Executive Council of Region Six meeting at John Rollins Success Primary School in Rose Hall, St James.

“Going forward is not going to be easy… we are in a state of flux, we are all about power, personal power, and personal aggrandisement and one-upmanship, that is what we are about. We are no longer a cohesive force that can deliver the knockout punch to the Opposition and can spread the word of hope and progress to the people,’ he said.

“ ‘We have to be baptised again. We need a refresher so that we can ‘wheel and come again’ in the true sense, because you should not take this Labour Party in power lightly. If you take them lightly, you are making a very serious mistake,’ he stressed.” Jamaica Observer, May 30, 2016)

The PNP is dreading the upcoming local government elections. That is no secret. In October last year, I said the PNP would lose the general election. I also noted that the general election would be called in February 2016.

“Whether the People’s National Party (PNP) president and the country’s prime minister calls the general and/or local government election in November, as some pundits predict and sections of the private sector are demanding; February 2016, as my sources insist; any time on or before December 29, 2016; or enter into a realm that no other political party has gone before — those additional three months allowed by the Jamaican Constitution — I sense that the PNP is headed for a crushing defeat similar to October 30, 1980.” Sunday Observer, October 25, 2015)

I was proved right. Any first-year student of local politics knows that between 1989-2007 the PNP increased its garrisons from eight to 15. The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has five garrisons. The JLP went into the February 25, 2016 national plebiscite with 21 seats and the PNP 42. The JLP did not lose any, and simultaneously gained 11 of the PNP’s. As the Americans say, “Do the maths!”

The PNP will lose the upcoming local government election. They will get a trouncing greater than Edward Seaga gave P J Patterson in 2003. My sources, those reliable Black-Bellied Plovers, John Chewits and Banana Quits, tell me that it would not be an exaggeration to compare the current state of the PNP’s political machinery to a toothless dog which has been abandoned by its master.

The jostle for key leadership posts in the PNP, inclusive of the presidency, will become more divisive over the coming weeks, according to my sources. My sources also tell me that bitter battles about ‘pigmentocracy’ and ‘moneytocracy’ are boiling over. The birds sing that many who see themselves as authentic grass roots socialists are fearing that the top of PNP’s political totem pole is rapidly being “brownised”. I will say more on that anon.

Lisa Hanna, who sources tell me is still viewed as a turncoat by some PNP ‘tapanaris’ and ginnigogs, also pulled out some of the intestines of Norman Manley’s party last week.

“England was a mighty place many years gone by. Now England is a troubled place, please don’t ask me why.”

“To quote an Old English Man, whose name is Sir Jack Union. He told me in song, London Bridge is falling down.”

Hanna’s words testify to the moribund state of the PNP.

“ ‘I believe, as some senior leaders of the party have said, ‘it is time to shake the tree’,’ Hanna wrote in her chairman’s report to the party’s Region One Executive Committee meeting held at Ferncourt High School in St Ann.

“ ‘As we experience the dawn of a new political era in Jamaica we will have to win friends and influence people, and we will have to present a vibrant face of the party. I am supportive to our party leader and believe that she should be allowed the time with her allies and family to determine her departure,’ Hanna stated.

“ ‘I want to help build a party that is more accountable and transparent to the delegates and people of Jamaica and uses modern management principles,’ Hanna said. ‘I want to build a party that practises a build up politics, rather than a ‘tear down, cut-throat, stab-you-in-the-back’ politics.’

“ ‘Any objective job description of the general secretary would include creating a positive brand image of the PNP; efficient political organisation, motivation of the staff and Comrades at the secretariat, upholding the constitution and discipline within the party, and most importantly winning elections… I say without fear of contraction (sic) that he has mismanaged each and every one of these areas,’ Hanna wrote at the time.

“ ‘What would Cde Norman Manley say if he looked at the PNP today?’ Hanna asked. ‘I agree with Cde Norman Manley that we should never allow our personalities to trump principles, and leaders at all levels should make way for renewal and placing the party’s interest above their own.’ ” (Jamaica Observer, May 31, 2016)

Recall that hitherto to these uppercuts Hanna had delivered these crushing body blows to her adopted party:

“ ‘Today, the PNP appears to be a relic of the past, with obsolete messages desperately trying to appeal to a generation whose sights are set on their future. We are disconnected by deep chasms of brutal internal conflicts and division. The courage that once epitomised the movement has been replaced by fear from being bludgeoned into submission from having an independent view. Comrades are now quiet; resolved to whispers so as not to be labelled subversive, and the internal structures no longer function. ‘ ” Sunday Observer, April 3, 2016)

The PNP is evidently in political free fall. Political bayonets have been sharpened, verbal barbs have been researched, and huge quantities of Kananga water have been bought.

While the PNP is immersed in political atrophy, Jamaica is steadily recovering from the damage it did to the economy, especially during the last 23 of 27 years it held power.

These figures tell the sad story.

The economic catastrophe of the Michael Manley years is a matter of public record: 1970 (11.9 per cent), 1971 (3.0 per cent), 1972 (9.1 per cent), 1973 (1.3 per cent), 1974 (-3.9 per cent), 1975 (-0.3 per cent), 1976 (-6.5 per cent), 1977 (-2.4 per cent), 1978 (0.6 per cent), 1979 (-1.8 per cent), 1980 (-5.7 per cent).

These statistics from the Planning Institute of Jamaica testify to the failures of the PNP’s 18 years in office from 1989 to 2007: 1989 (7.0 per cent), 1990 (6.3 per cent), 1991 (0.5 per cent), 1992 (2.7 per cent), 1993 (2.2 per cent), 1994 (1.9 per cent), 1995 (2.5 per cent), 1996 (-0.2 per cent), 1997 (-1.6 per cent), 1998 (-1.0 per cent), 1999 (1.0 per cent), 2000 (0.9 per cent), 2001 (1.3 per cent), 2002 (1.0 per cent), 2003 (3.5 per cent), 2004 (1.4 per cent), 2005 (1.1 per cent), 2006 (3.0 per cent), 2007 (1.4 per cent).

(NB: The years 1972 and 1990 were momentum years of the Jamaica Labour Party administrations of former prime ministers Hugh Lawson Shearer and Edward Seaga.)

Why has the PNP been so disastrous at governance? Simply, it’s a party that concentrates on and is preoccupied with creating bread and circuses. The expression bread and circuses is used to describe the generation of public approval, not through exemplary or excellent public service or public policy, but through diversion, distraction, or the mere satisfaction of the immediate, shallow requirements of a populace.

From 2011-2014, the economy grew at an average 0.4 per cent under Dr Peter Phillips, former minister of finance and

The Gleaner‘s Man of the Year. The JLP left the economy growing at 1.7 per cent in 2011. This was achieved during the worst global economic recession since the Great Depression of 1929-1939.

For several months prior to the last general election the PNP gave us Anancy stories [make belief] regarding economic growth. Then this bombshell.

“Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) yesterday reported that the country has experienced sluggish growth of 0.8 per cent for the calendar year 2015.”(Jamaica Observer, March 4, 2016).

The PNP has been Jamaica’s worst nightmare. Happily, a critical mass is awakened.

Having exhaled the PNP, more good news came last week:

“The Jamaican economy grew by an estimated 0.9 per cent for the quarter to March 2016 compared to the corresponding period last year and was the same level of expansion for fiscal year 2015/16, the Planning Institute of Jamaica reported on Wednesday.” (

The Gleaner, June 1, 2016)

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. — Herbert Spencer

Garfield Higgins is an educator; journalist; and advisor to the minister of education, youth and information. Send comments to the Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.