IN many circles he is known as the son of Peter David Phillips, the President of the Opposition People’s National Party.

But while Mikael Asher Phillips will not shake off the stigma of being son of the brilliant scholar and political economist, that of being offspring of the Leader of the Opposition will remain confined in his corner until that status is adjusted.

He goes into a six-candidate race for vice president of the party next month confident that he will be triumphant and realise another political dream of his. But why has he now decided to enter the race?

“Well, why not now?” was the younger Phillips’s zippy response. “A man does not go into a race unless he feels that he can win. I remember three years ago there were Comrades who came to me and said as one of the younger ones they would want to see me go forward, but I didn’t think that the timing was right and that I could have been victorious. I think I needed to establish myself more as regional chairman and concentrate on building my own region that I was elected to do. I was new to the Parliament itself too,” said the man who chairs the PNP’s Region Five, which comprises the parishes of St Elizabeth and Manchester.

“In this politics, timing is everything, and that’s why I ask the question why not now. The VP posts become vacant every year. Seeing where the politics is going now, where the party needs to head, and seeing that there is a lot of work to be done out there within the party, also seeing that I have been regional chairman for three political years and being involved in Region Five since 2009, there needs to be additional hands on deck for organisational work within the party.

“I said when offering myself I would not wait on the party leader to give me an assignment. I love the road and building relationships, getting organisations up and running, so I see myself in that role as a worker for the party. I would want to see myself in the role of VP with responsibility for organisational matters. Seeing that we need persons to go out there now in helping the party itself, there are some structural weaknesses within the constituencies and the party itself that needs some strengthening, and with that in mind I decided that I would offer myself, seeing that we have brought Region Five to a point right now whereby the seats that we have lost in 2016 — South East and South West St Elizabeth — that we have able standard-bearers in there. The organisations in both constituencies are up and running; the political work being done in there is satisfactory. We have a good team in Region Five. We only have North East Manchester to settle. So why not then do that type of work outside of the region? And being a vice-president would also give me that opportunity to broaden my wings in helping the party to do organisational work.”

Mikael Phillips said that contrary to gossip on the street that his father was against him joining the race, the PNP leader instead gave him his blessing, having outlined his future political ambition.

“Out of respect for my father, who is the leader, and my father who is my best frind, I would have had to speak to him. He expressed his concerns to me going forward, and like he said, ‘you are a big man, you have made your own assessment’. My father never told me that he didn’t want me to go forward, but being the leader, not because I am his son is he going to give me preference over others, especially in the position that he is. I don’t think so. Every other candidate who has put themselves forward, before declaring that they were going forward, they went to the leader and expressed their interest in going for vice-president. When we go to meetings, I call him Comrade leader like everybody else. When I am at home I call him Pops or Pepito, as I normally refer to him, or PDP, but when it comes to the parliamentary scene, I don’t see myself at a better advantage than others.

“I always say my father will judge me or mark me harder than he would my other colleagues. If I was not appointed to the Shadow Cabinet before he became Opposition Leader, maybe he would not have appointed me as a senior Cabinet spokesperson, because of the fact that he doesn’t want anyone to feel that he was giving me preference, and I know that of my father — not just now, but all my life. So I approached this election not coming in it as his son, and I can’t ignore that fact, but coming in it wanting to do more work for the party that I have been representing, the party that has given me the opportunity to be a Member of Parliament and to serve the people of Jamaica. Each step of my political walk I have had a conversation with my father. We have agreed with some things and we have disagreed on others. At the end of the day, I am at the stage where I can make my own decisions and I would not do anything to harm neither the party nor my father who has been serving, with distinction long before I came to the PNP. If my father was against me running I would not be in the race,” Mikael Phillips told the Jamaica Observer, while he recuperated from foot surgery last week.

The battle to fill the four slots is on in earnest, but Mikael will not call upon his dad to be a part of his campaign team, nor will he ask the Leader of the Opposition to whisper good words in the ears of doubting or apprehensive delegates to gain their approval in the matchup with incumbents Dr Fenton Ferguson, Dr Wykeham McNeill, Angella Brown Burke, and fellow newcomers Damion Crawford and Phillip Paulwell.

“No. Not all all. I will not call upon my father for support. I entered this race not being his son but being a member of the People’s National Party like any other member who would have wanted to offer themselves. I enter this race on my own track record, on the ralationships that I have built over the years. I have been working with the party since it came back into office in 1989. I would have had Comrades out there who I would have met through my father’s campaign over the years, but I have built my own relationships out there with Comrades. One of the things that I have grown up around the PNP and seen is that it is not those constituencies that are strong that need more love and affection and help. It is those that are weak. I have, over the years, given out that hand of friendship to those constituencies that have no national leadership and it has worked to my advantage. I wasn’t doing it because I was looking any particular office within the party, but it makes good camaraderie, good comradeship, and that has helped me in this campaign.

“It’s not that I just a come and feeling my way. There are some who have supported my father and who would extend that to me, but there are Comrades out there who still not on board with the leader and are giving me support. I remember when I went to North West Manchester, for the three years that I went into that seat before the General Election of 2011, I never invited my father in the constituency, never brought him there as a speaker for my conference … the first time he came there was during the final conference before the election of 2011, because it was important for me to establish myself in there as Mikael Phillips and not as Peter’s son. I think I have done a fairly good job in my work in Parliament, in my constituency and nationally, of establishing myself as Mikael. I have seen my work outside the shadow of my father,” the two-term MP for Manchester North Western suggested.

Describing the situation as one of “damn if you do and damn if you don’t”, Mikail Phillips said that he possessed the ability to work at the level of VP, and rejected the suggestion that he should have waited until his father was no longer party leader before he sought the party’s second-highest office.

“I will never get away with it because my father is my father, and if I had to live my life over again I would want it the same way — same father, same mother,” he emphasised, while insisting that he tries to establish himself as his own person and how to stand on his feet as his father taught him. He also addressed the view that it could be a negative party statement and a slap in the face for the party president if the son of the Leader of the Opposition did not make it as a vice-president.

“Persons would want to coin it by saying, ‘boy, Peter could not help him son, or it is Peter being weak why his son did not make it. Even if I am victorious, people would not attribute that victory to me; they would say ‘a him father bring him through’. My conscience is clear that I would have done my work to make me victorious. I analysed it before declaring my hand that persons may want to use my father against supporting me, as well as persons may want to use me to get back at him. Persons may want to tie us together, but knowing that all of that may be a possibility, I felt that I have built my own relationships out there that even if the latter were to affect my campaign, it would be minimal and I can overcome it.

“My intention is not for my father, but to strengthen the political organisation that I am a member of. I didn’t just pick up myself and say I am going to run. There are persons out there, my own region, which, for me, is one of the most organised regions there is now in the party. They thought that the work I did in the region, that they would want to see me. They know that my strength is the ground,” Mikael Phillips said.