Dr Peter Phillips will officially take up duties as opposition leader today.

He is expected to take the oath of office at a ceremony scheduled for King’s House in St Andrew, beginning at 9:00 am.

The former finance minister, who replaced Portia Simpson Miller as president of the People’s National Party (PNP), ascended to the zenith of the political organisation by acclamation two Sundays ago at a special delegates’ conference held at the National Arena. He is the fifth president of the party, now in its 79th year of existence.

Chief among his immediate and expected duties is the reconciliation of a seemingly fractured party marred by infighting over the past year. He is also expected to re-energise the country’s youth in a bid to attract them to the party as well as lead an astir Opposition.

Yesterday, political analyst Martin Henry, commenting on Phillips’s anticipated appointment, said it is expected that at age 67, and with broad experience in government, he will be a responsible opposition leader who will hold the Government to task and build a very strong Shadow Cabinet rather than over-exercise himself to seek to bring down a small majority Government in order to become prime minister.

“The parliamentary cycle has another four years to run and the country certainly needs a strong, clear-minded, clear-voiced Opposition, and Dr Phillips will, from tomorrow [today], have the task of leading that Opposition constitutionally in the nation’s Parliament,” Henry shared with the Jamaica Observer via telephone.

The Shadow Cabinet, Henry suggested, should be formed from the full slate of those available to him — 30 Members of Parliament and eight senators.

“I am not very much in support of quota of any kind. I am not a strong supporter of artificial gender or age quotas. The Leader of the Opposition should choose the very best people available by way of experience, by way of education, by way of commitment, and by way of their capacity to carry out the duties to be so assigned.

“I don’t think you should force youth to become a critical factor, despite the need in the larger society to balance the sectoral interest and other kinds of group interest,” he noted.

On the subject of senators who were appointed by Simpson Miller, Henry said they have a moral duty to allow Phillips a “clean slate” for fresh appointment.

“One would expect that the resignations would follow on a matter of principle and clear need for the freedom to reappoint as opposed to a hard, legal requirement. But even if Dr Phillips has the same slate, because senators don’t budge, they would have been appointed, I think, with some sort of serious consideration within the party, and would be a slate of senators that can serve the interest of the Opposition very well,” he said, adding that, “It would be good and decent for the senators on the minority side to tender their resignation.”