An edited version of former PNP General Secretary Paul Burke’s letter to the People’s National Party (PNP) in which he accuses his wife Angela Brown Burke of misleading him in her support for Peter Bunting’s challenge to PNP President Dr Peter Phillips.

Burke headlined his letter ‘Leadership Issues & Decisions, Part One – Exploring Political Ambitions, Self-Interest, Political Expediency, Political Survival, Opportunism and Betrayals.’

My challenge on this controversial topic is how and where to start and how and where to end.

Comrades, I tried to make it short and this is the edited edition and which, as women like to say, will also show the soft side in me, bringing out the contradictions of being unapologetically in love with the person and being strongly critical of the politician, who happens to be the very same person. But this is not about any one individual, but sharing my political thoughts with those who care to know.

Accepting that there is a very thin line between self-interest, political expediency, political survival and opportunism, all of which must be factored in one’s political tactics and strategy and therefore, in the choices they make and the decision they take. I do not use the work opportunism as necessarily a negative word, as I now accept that it is now a common practice in our politics today. So many persons don’t even realise what is political opportunism any more.

Opportunism – Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunism

Opportunism is the practice of taking advantage of circumstances – with little regard for principles or with what the consequences are for others. Opportunist …

Opportunism | Definition of Opportunism by Merriam-Webster

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/opportunism

Opportunism definition is – the art, policy, or practice of taking advantage of opportunities or circumstances often with little regard for principles or consequences.

Definition of opportunism: Practice of exploiting circumstances in self-interest, specially without regard to moral principles or others’ interests.

Opportunism | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/opportunism

opportunism meaning: 1. behaviour in which you use every situation to try to get power or an advantage: 2. behaviour in which someone uses every situation to …

We have, over the years — having being impacted by globalisation — the information revolution, media management and manipulation, the monetisation of increasing aspects of our internal party politics as well as its vulgar manifestation in our national politics, and thus, we have more often than not put aside our philosophical positions as conveniences and nice sounding phrases, as well as the politics of principles, which we used to pride ourselves on.

We now have a new political environment created, in the main, over the past three years and rapidly monetised over the past 10 years. Why I say mainly over the past three years is that since losing political power in February 2016 — the previous glue which was political power, traditional support for the People’s National Party — and the respect, love and trust by many for our former party president, Comrade Portia Simpson Miller — there has been no philosophical glue or commonality for some time.

No one individual created this environment and in the absence of an ongoing relevant and structured political education programme, there were no mitigating alternatives to this new and invasive force. It is in this climate that we now have a presidential race in the People’s National Party.

In fairness, to our current president, he has initiated the process with “The Covenant”.

I am a political dinosaur, in the sense that while I have been at the front of many renewal efforts and have led the Structures Review Committee right up to the publishing of the 2017 Constitution of the People’s National Party, a major leap in establishing clearly defined responsibilities and performance targets of our elected representatives and leaders, accountability and sanctions, I honestly, truly and consistently try to start my thinking and decisions from a philosophical viewpoint and from the party’s democratic and once socialist-inclined positions.

This, knowing fully well that the PNP, neither in word nor practice — outside of the academic and historic references in our objectives — is socialist. I am not proposing that we should be trying to market ourselves as a socialist party, because we are not, but we should not abandon our fundamental socialist principles in terms of whose interest the economy should serve.

Therefore, I feel compelled to write weekly over the next coming weeks leading up to the presidential elections. One of the present objectives of the People’s National Party states: “By guiding, informing and expressing public opinion, through public meetings and party literature to develop the political life of the country.”

By extension, I interpret this to mean that members ought to be involved in this discourse and development, so that the party can take informed positions on these issues. Until the party retakes a position, formally, I am not only guided, but bound by stated party principles and policies.

So let me declare from the outset that I fully support ‘David’ in this presidential race, and one of the many reasons for my support is that I truly believe that a vote for Peter David is a vote against ‘corruption and cronyism’. Further, I beseech and implore those of us who are supporting Peter David to constantly declare that a vote for Peter David is a vote against corruption and cronyism.

The Right of Delegates to Choose

The People’s National Party is the undisputed champion of modern democracy in Jamaica, spearheaded by the members of the Jamaica Progressive League, prior to our formation in August 1938.

None of us were forced to join the People’s National Party, and none of us are being forced to remain. Hopefully, we remain because we are committed to the philosophy and principles of the party and not firstly for self-ambitions and self-aggrandizement. So we must respect a person’s right to make their choice and never castigate them for exercising that right.

But equally, we can and indeed should make our honest and unbiased analysis of what is happening in the party, and everyone does not have to agree and persons should also make counter and alternative analysis. This should be done in a respectful manner and not be distasteful. Expressing differences and giving criticisms should not be seen as attacks.

Criticism, particularly constructive criticism, is a good and necessary exercise and certainly in my own account of the period when I was general secretary, not yet released, I commence with harsh criticisms about my acceptance of that post and mistakes that I made in the past. I have absorbed so much unfair and non-factual criticism, and that truth is still to be told, but for another day when this presidential campaign is over.

Comrade Angela Brown Burke has been one of my leaders in the People’s National Party, before and after being a vice-president, but admittedly more so on becoming a vice-president of the party in 2006. My acceptance of her as a leader has nothing to do with any personal relationship. However, as I have done in the past, I have a right to openly critique, commend and indeed criticise my leaders. I did so under Michael Manley’s leadership and also that of Comrade PJ Patterson’s. It was never personal, always just having politically different viewpoints.

I vividly recall that at the NEC meeting, held at the then Forum Hotel in January 1978, I openly and strongly disagreed with Comrade Manley’s position, definition and interpretation of ‘imperialism’ and said so. We got into a debate. After he had spoken repeatedly and insistently on the matter, I called for a vote. He was openly furious, saying that who would dare call for a divide and vote after he had made his position clear. We insisted and the vote was taken, and only two of us — Sheldon McDonald, the then PNPYO general secretary and myself, the then national chairman of the PNPYO — voted against the position being carried by the Maximum Leader, Comrade Manley.

I was told by many in the NEC and my own MP, Comrade William Isaacs afterwards, that I was both rude and disrespectful, to have done what I did publicly. I disagreed then and I will disagree now.

So today, notwithstanding the fact that some persons may leak this letter to the media, which I really do not want to happen, I have a right to communicate my views to the party and will not allow myself to be censured because of this risk.

After all, I have put my life at physical risk in literally defending this party and in the struggle days of the 1970s and more so protecting its vulnerable members and supporters in those dark, difficult and dangerous days of the 1980s when the JLP Government literally labelled and constantly targeted me not once, but three times publicly in Parliament — 1981, 1984, and 1986 — as Public Enemy No 1.

So I will speak openly, freely (but always responsibly), as it’s my right, and I assure Comrades that I am honestly and sincerely committed to telling the truth as I know it, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Comrade Angela Brown Burke’s Decision

Angela has every right to support who she wants.

But leaders must also tell the truth, as to why you have taken the positions you have and it should not be about any vendetta.

I have no difficulty in her exercising that right and I will defend her right and that of any other members for their free choice.

She has spent the most part of her life — from the St Thomas PNPYO in the late 1970s and more actively on becoming a councillor in the Norman Gardens Division in 1998 — in active, selfless and dedicated service to the party.

Over the years, we have had many different views, a few of which are:

• In the mid-80s, when I was openly critical of several aspects of communism and communist life in East Europe and, I hasten to say, not Cuba where she studied, she would often tell me that I was anti-communist.

• When I became chairman of Region Three in 1995, she many times openly and strongly was at variance with me. At other times, she was critical of positions I took.

This surprised many of our comrades and friends. We always agreed on our common right to disagree and I was never ever offended by her public, open and strong differences with me. I have never wanted a surrogate as a partner and [am] proud of her independent stand, motivated by principled thinking.

• We have fundamental and irreconcilable differences over religion and spirituality.

• She supported Hillary Clinton for US president when I supported ‘Anyone but Hillary’, condemning her and [Barack] Obama for the overthrow of Gadaffi and for their Africa Policy.

• We openly supported different aspirants in the Norman Gardens Division candidate selection in early 2018, but once the selection was over, we both supported the same candidate.

• In 1998, I did not support her to offer herself as a councillor candidate in Norman Gardens, but once she took her decision to contest, she had my full support.

• I initially discouraged her to offer herself as a candidate in South West St Andrew, as I had discouraged Comrade Phillip Paulwell on each occasion he raised the matter of him being the future candidate for South West St Andrew. Once she took her decision to go, she had my full support.

• We now differ over who is the best person to lead the People’s National Party. It’s not her choice — that is her right — but the sheer deception by a leader whom I trusted totally, who told me and even wrote me, that she was not declaring, that is the issue here.

Her choice for herself and her political future could be right. I am not arrogant to believe that I am always right, but like many of you, I am not only confused, but bewildered by her decision. As I said, Comrade Angela Brown Burke has the right to choose. She owes me no explanations, but she did not have to deceive me.

What the absence of a clearly and established agreed party philosophy does

Comrade Brown Burke told me repeatedly that while she was uncomfortable with some of the members of Comrade Peter Phillips’s team, she could never support a Peter Bunting. And in reflecting with Norman yesterday morning (Saturday) over breakfast, he too was bewildered, because she had also assured him that she could never ever “Support a Bunting.” Yes, Comrade Brown Burke told me this repeatedly — not once, not twice, not thrice. But she has a right, like all of us, to change our minds and positions.

Based on conversations, observations, and since I have had no explanation from Comrade Brown Burke and who, incidentally does not owe me any, notwithstanding the fact that we have both been our common strongest political allies and support base, and knowing that Angela is a good and decent person — and I say this not only because she is my wife and very best friend in life — I can only now conclude that she has become a player and victim of the ‘new normal’ of the People’s National Party.

I remember sometime in the 1960s, a man in St Mary chopped up his wife and it was news for weeks, if not months. It was outrageously shocking and the entire court case was reported daily, almost verbatim. Today, that might be news for 24 hours, because we are now living in a violent and unpredictable environment. That’s how ‘new norms’ are gradually created.

So in today’s politics of ambitions, political survival, self-interest, and opportunism, I suspect Comrade Angela Brown Burke did what was in her best interest for her political survival in South West St Andrew and for her own political future.

To my limited mind, it’s almost like Michael Manley telling us to vote for the JLP. So I must ask questions of my leaders, a category in which I have long placed Comrade Angela Brown Burke, because I know that:

(1) No common philosophical platform: I can state publicly that she and Peter Bunting cannot and do not share the same philosophical platform. If that is so, I have been further misled. I will not go into details of what she could consider her private and confidential comments, between wife and husband.

(2) They are not traditional political allies: He has opposed her throughout her career since becoming a vice-president in 2006. He has spent his money to block her. Nothing wrong. It was his money, to spend how, why, where and when he wanted to and in support for those he chooses to support in the South West St Andrew candidate selection run-off in 2017.

In fact, it was Angela herself who reminded me some weeks ago what Comrade Bunting said publicly why he was supporting Audrey Smith Facey, “Because a vote for Smith Facey is a vote against corruption and cronyism. Angela is obviously a very forgiving person, which is an excellent quality, but I would humbly and respectfully suggest that it should go both ways in the political dispensation and that there are other persons who she should forgive for her real or perceived betrayal.

In fact, her campaign had a flyer showing Comrade Peter Bunting being depicted under ‘Money Power’ against Angela, with her being depicted under ‘People Power”. Against all odds she was successful, but it drained her physically, emotionally and financially.

So they are not political allies.

(3) Money Power: She cannot be bought by money or monetary considerations. I can attest to this. So unlike some other candidates who can be tempted by a presidential candidate saying to them, ‘if I win, I will fund your campaign to the tune of $10,000,000’. Money could never be a factor in her decision. Anyway, in the ‘new normal’ is that wrong when you are in a marginal constituency and may have 18 months to general elections? That is the political survival factor in today’s reality of our democratic politics.

So many of our members have no inclination of what it costs to do political work and what a general election campaign really costs, which is not what is actually declared to the EOJ in accordance with the Representation of the People Act. After all, the ‘new norm’ for many in the PNP is to win at any cost. I take the position that we can and will win with Peter David, without selling our political souls for expediency.

She, too, was outraged by Comrade Bunting’s despicable statement of what bills he had paid for the party. That will be a subject for another revealing article, and I believe Emancipation Day, Thursday 1st August, is a most appropriate day to share my thinking on that matter.

Why Comrade Brown Burke’s Position Matters

Angela is an influential leader, notwithstanding the fact that she is no longer a vice-president of the party. Persons have quite rightly speculated as to her reasons and not all of this speculation is positive. So I implore those few misguided persons who have suggested that she was paid and bought out, to desist.

I, too, am not just confused, I am bewildered. I will share my thinking and views, although I am under no obligation to explain these to anyone, but as someone who has openly supported and canvassed for her, and although she gave no messages to carry, I have unintentionally misled close political allies of hers and mine. When she had not declared several of her strong supporters called me inquiring as to where she stood. She has now made it clear. All which I now write, I truly and honesty believe to be true.

As Member of Parliament for South West St Andrew

Angela is truly dedicated to serving the people of South West St Andrew. It absorbs her, but she is committed to the task.

It is important to her to make a difference to the quality of life of the people of that constituency. I hear, see and know her passion in this regard. This is being undermined almost daily because of the division in the constituency and of a minority, but strong, passive resistance to her leadership and to the political programme of the constituency. She knows who created and nourishes the division and passive resistance to her leadership, and perhaps only that person can really fix it.

This in a situation where two of her councillors and a significant number, if not the majority of her delegates, are supporting Comrade Peter Bunting. As I have been told, many of them still have feelings against Comrade Peter Phillips, which too is now being properly nourished, for his 2008 presidential challenge against their beloved Member of Parliament Comrade Portia Simpson Miller. As I have said, our choices have consequences.

Based on my information, which I believe to be absolutely correct, Comrade Angela Brown Burke has to consider her political survival.

Scenario One: She supports Comrade Peter Bunting and he loses.

He would more than likely actively support her for any future internal contest selection in South West St Andrew and not her former opponent.

Scenario Two: She supports Comrade Peter Phillips and he loses.

Could she then expect Comrade Peter Bunting, as the new party president, to support her in any future run-off, pertaining to her candidacy in South West St Andrew, when her opponent has been his long-time political ally?

As I said and have shown above, it’s not about money or shared philosophy or any alliance. It’s about her political future and survival in South West St Andrew, a constituency with all its challenges, its violence, its poverty, she has come to cherish. She wants to make a fundamental difference, particularly in education for the children and public safety for the wider residents. Her goals are admirable and she wants to be able to focus on this mission and be successful.

Notwithstanding all of this, I think she has made a bad choice.

We have both agreed about Comrade Peter Phillips being a proven and committed social democrat, committed to democracy, committed to economic democracy, committed to the building of a more inclusive ownership society economy and social upliftment of the Jamaican people. We have both agreed that Comrade Peter Bunting is none of the above and Angela cannot deny this. So I am truly confused and bewildered.

So all our our leaders have had to do what they had to do. The question could be asked, why should Comrade Angela Brown Burke be different? After all she owes no obligations to anyone, expect to the people of South West St Andrew and, by extension, her own political survival.

The other leaders in the party have also, and far much too often, merged their ambitions, self-interest, expediency, political survival, opportunism over their philosophical principles. Angela should not be singled out for this; it is the ‘new normal’ within the People’s National Party, as we gradually become more like the Jamaica Labour Party in our political culture and practises.

That’s the South West St Andrew side.

The 2017 PNP Vice-Presidential Elections

So What Happened…

Angela should never have run in the 2018 vice-presidential election. She had broached it with me that she was considering not contesting and she got my full support not to contest. I assisted her with her statement to her inner strategy team. She was clear she was not running and wanted to give her team 48 hours to inform them prior to the closing of the 2018 nomination period. So we met on the Wednesday at Alhambra Inn, the deadline for nomination being midday on the Friday of the same week.

Her team protested her decision, literally crying that she could not abandon them or the women of the party who looked up to her and she was literally coerced to change her mind. Of course, I was disappointed that she succumbed to their emotional pressures, but I understood that decision was not opportunism or opportunist behaviour, but nonetheless, a most terrible decision.

The fact is that during the past year, having both an internal candidate selection fight and a by-election, she had not performed well as a vice-president and would not have been able to do so in a manner the party would require in opposition and in a rebuilding period. She just did not have the time, the energy and resources to divide herself between South West St Andrew and the national responsibilities of the People’s National Party.

It was a terrible decision to contest and more so, she had depleted her personal resources and that of the friends who were willing and capable. She ran a crippling low budget campaign, almost doomed to failure from the outset and performed extraordinarily well under the circumstances.

‘Betrayal or Not’ and Consequences

For the record and as a fact, Comrade Brown Burke had no arrangement/s with anyone not to run, nor did she make any deal/s pertaining to her being the candidate of South West St Andrew. However, she is of the view that her support base was undermined.

Consequences for our political choices

There will be consequences for me penning this letter, perhaps straight to the Disciplinary Committee of the party, but when can’t we share views and analyses in a respectful matter, even if feelings are bruised in the People’s National Party?

Some persons call it ‘Pay Back’, some persons call it ‘Get Back’

Angela is not involved in negative politics. Like in all her other campaigns, she promoted her candidature and, for quite a while up to the polling day, that of Comrade Phillip Paulwell, but did not target anyone. She instructed her campaign team repeatedly not to tell anyone not to vote against any particular candidate. She ran a decent and principled campaign of hard and strategic work, handicapped by a lack of funds, and one which started later than all her of competing comrades, as it was a last-minute decision to contest.

She was the most targeted individual in that vice-presidential election. No doubt, partly because of me and my detractors. Kamla, who is now an ally, had some nasty things to say about her. But she expected that and knew who was programming her.

Comrades who she had expected to support her and told her that they would, betrayed her. This is not new in politics anywhere in the world. It comes with the territory and has been happening from the beginning of days.

But, at least Comrade Peter Bunting was honest when she humbled herself, knowing that she was in need of support from anywhere, and went to him seeking his support. He declined to support her. I respect him for his honesty in this particular decision, but I believe it would have been open and sheer hypocrisy to tell her otherwise.

The Party President’s Team

The hard fact is that several key persons who were close palace guards and allies of Comrade Peter Phillips actually went out — some covertly, some overtly and some politically — to ensure that their candidates would win. Some viciously campaigned against Angela. The party president has insisted to me he was not aware and deliberately did not involve himself in the campaign. Angela was never convinced that it was a sin of omission on his part.

So there are consequences, and the persons around Comrade Phillips should have known better. They should have gone and supported their choice of four, but not targeted Angela. Even some delegates in East Kingston and Port Royal — a constituency she started serving as campaign manager to Comrade Phillip Paulwell in his first election, the general elections of 1997 and where she served as a councillor for 19 years — did not vote for her. Comrade Paulwell has repeatedly denied that it was by his directives, but Angela has never been convinced that it was a sin of omission.

And, of course, there have been other denials which Angela has not readily accepted.

Angela accepted the defeat well. In fact, she told me several times that she was now relieved to be no longer a vice-president so she could focus on South West St Andrew, but I know that the betrayals have hurt her.

In my view, and I strongly feel so, it was time for ‘Pay Back or ‘Get Back Politics’ whichever terminology you prefer. Unfortunate as it is, this thinking is nothing new in politics and certainly not new in the People’s National Party. But it is probably at its worst level in the absence of reminding ourselves and subscribing to our political philosophy and principles. I have truly tried never to consciously subscribe to ‘Pay Back Politics’

After all, Angela is only a human being, with blood running through her, and perceived betrayals from allies and friends are worse than being back-stabbed by your political opponents. She would, as she has said, have difficulty in being a part of a campaign team with some of some persons over that side.

So Comrade Brown Burke has probably realised and subscribed to the view, as best said by French President Charles de Gaulle, “France has no friends, only interests.”

So she has a right to her free choice and we both have a right to publicly expose and criticise each other in the political realm. I look forward to her rebuttals and criticisms, attacks probably, to which I will happily respond. I have opened that door and I will not cry foul.

On a personal note

I am married to a good woman, my very best friend in life, and one with strong Christian principles and morals and an excellent and loving mother to our children. Indeed, I owe her so much, but not to remain quiet about what I regard her political mistakes, as when we got married in May 1985 our socialist philosophy was part of our formal, written and shared marriage vows.

Trust is a critical part of political leadership

I was so taken aback by her decision, I had to compartmentalise the issues (one of my strengths) not to be devastated, as admittedly, this has been one of the worst political blows regarding our internal politics that I have had, whatever her reasons and rationale. It’s not about her decision, but right up to the 11th hour on the day, she misled me; in fact deceived me, saying that she was not declaring, but had only signed Comrade Bunting’s Nomination Form, but would not be walking with him at his Nomination Day exercise. How disingenuous.

Notwithstanding, I owe her so much in the development of her life, and my position which I told her in 1984 “that I was only and totally, madly and badly in love with her,” still remains unchanged. In fact, it is cemented from my end.

The Campaigns

I say to Comrades, ‘all that glitters is not gold’ so do not be succumbed by ‘blitz and glitz’ of the Rise Campaign.

Do not succumb to the money-powered, ‘Shock and Awe’ Campaign of the Rise Campaign.

There are no messiahs. We collectively, as One PNP, Powerful Together, have our tasks.

• We will work and we will win the people;

• We will unite and we will win the people;

• We will “Put People First” and we shall certainly win the people.

I conclude with this quote: “This forgetting of the great, the principal considerations for the momentary interests of the day, this struggling and striving for the success of the moment regardless of later consequences, this sacrifice of the future of the movement for its present may be ‘honestly’ meant, but it is and remains opportunism, and ‘honest’ opportunism is perhaps the most dangerous of all….” — Frederick Engels

Paul Burke

Member, New Foundations Group

East Kingston and Port Royal.

28th July, 2018