Dear Editor,

Politics can surely get interesting at times, can’t it?

Now we hear that the leader of the People’s National Party (PNP), Portia Simpson Miller is going to be challenged for the party’s top job by Dr Karl Blythe, one of the party’s former vice-presidents. If it’s one thing that I have experience in, like so many of us, is to smell a political charade miles away.

While no one is disputing Dr Blythe’s right, or anybody’s right for that matter, to challenge the current leader of the PNP, it is very clear to me that there is more to this presidential challenge than what we are being led to believe.

Dr Blythe has been effectively out of the PNP now for years. As such, for him to present a challenge to the party leader is more than a little odd. As I heard a party supporter on television saying, the man has been virtually invisible, so why is he doing this now?

However, for me, the reasons are very clear. For some time now there have been very loud calls within the party for renewal. Many people inside the PNP have been calling for members of the old guard, like Simpson Miller, to go. Some inside that party have even said that, as long as she is there, the party can forget ever regaining State power.

Also, Peter Bunting had intended to challenge and there was talk of others. No doubt, many sections of the party’s leadership were hopeful that with the withdrawal of those challenges, all talk of renewal, and especially at the top, would end. Clearly, that did not happen.

So, in a clear attempt to put these “renewal calls” to an end, an election of sorts has been arranged to give the impression that the PNP leadership is receptive to the idea of letting the delegates vote in a ‘democracy’ to show that it is not stubbornly resisting change. However, even people like me have seen through this ruse.

Why do I say this? It has been reported that the party leadership talked serious potential challengers out of it for the sake of party unity. Yet, as far as we know, no one has seen the need to try and talk Dr Blythe out of challenging Simpson Miller.

The reason is simple. People like Bunting, who is very active and visible, may stand a real chance to unseat Simpson Miller. With Blythe a non-starter, what better way to give the impression that the party is receptive to the idea of renewal and that “democracy is at work” than to at least allow his challenge? – one guaranteed to fail.

While I cannot say that the entire party’s senior leadership is in on this ruse, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case.

In any case, such a plan can backfire. Most of us aren’t that naïve and some people, especially some in the party, may feel that their intelligence is being insulted. This supposed election will not end calls for renewal; it may just intensify them even more.

Michael A Dingwall

michael_a_dingwall@hotmail.com