The Andrew Holness-led Government of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is breaking all performance records. And there are too many Labourites who believe that on that basis a second term is assured. I hate to rain on the parade of Labourites, but I am here to tell them — not so fast! Performance punches way below its weight where Jamaicans are concerned.

The low weighting of performance, however, is not just a Jamaican thing. It is not just a black people thing. It is an international thing. And it is a human thing. The inclination to under-reward good performance is in the psychological make-up of human beings.

When people vote, they vote for the future. They accept things as they are at any point in time and then look to the future. Performance is yesterday’s dinner; people will be more interested in tomorrow’s breakfast.

The phenomenon is best explained by how the British people treated Winston Churchill in 1945. The Herculean efforts of Churchill during World War Two and his inspirational leadership during the Battle of Britain are legendary. It could be said that he not just saved Britain from the tyranny of Adolf Hitler, but the world. Nevertheless, when the people of the United Kingdom voted on July 5, 1945 (with the war just ended May 8) they handed Churchill a massive defeat. The Clement Attlee-led Labour Party won 393 seats to Churchill’s Conservatives 197 seats, Archibald Sinclair’s Liberal 12 seats, and Ernest Brown’s Liberal National Party 11 seats. The remaining 27 seats of the 640-seat House of Commons were shared up among other minor parties and independent candidates.

The British Labour Party was winning the popular vote for the first time since 1906. That was achieved against the background of Churchill’s approval rating in May 1945 standing at 83 per cent. With Churchill enjoying that hero status, both he and the Conservatives were shocked into disbelief with the result. The Labour Party, running on the message of “Let us face the future”, and drawing from the popular Beveridge Report which was published in 1942 and which proposed the creation of a welfare state, was able to promise a raft of social and economic changes. The British Labour Party proved then that looking to the future with promises trumped performance any day.

The Jamaican experience is stark. Jamaicans literally punish good performance and reward poor performance. The decade after Independence has been our best decade ever. The period 1967 to 1972 was our best period to date. The architect of that prosperous period, Hugh Lawson Shearer, was given one term and then kicked to the kerb. The economic development under Shearer’s leadership has been unmatched. During that term, real growth averaged five per cent per annum, with growth as high as 11.8 per cent in 1970 and 9.8 per cent in 1972. A factory was opened every month. At the end of Shearer’s five-year term there were 201 factories operating in Jamaica. Three bauxite companies, including Alpart, started operating. Tourism took a quantum leap with the construction of hotels such as the 900-bed Holiday Inn in Montego Bay, Turtle Beach Towers, and Mallards Beach Hotel in Ocho Rios, among many others. Shearer built schools; 59 secondary and 126 primary schools (some built during the first five years of Independence). Shearer did not even have one of those schools named after him — that is how ungrateful we are as a nation.

Under Shearer, housing development was significant for the quantity and the quality of the houses that were built. The city of Portmore was conceived and started. By the end of the term, 1,260 houses were built in Independence City, 200 in Edgewater, 420 in Ensom City, and 180 in Nightingale Grove. In the Corporate Area, there were working class neighbourhoods such as Queensbury, Hughenden, Tivoli Gardens, and Payne Avenue; upscale developments such as Allerdyce, Norbrook, and Alysham were also done. In the rural areas there were developments such as Woodlawn in Mandeville, Balmoral in Ocho Rios, Paradise Acres and Ironshore in St James, and Albion Estate in St Thomas. The style and class of the construction was reflected in the building of apartments such as Knutsford Manor, Worthington Towers, Manor Park, Maryfield, Carriage House, Chelsea, Oxford, and Gallery.

Cornwall Regional Hospital was built and Kingston Public and the Victoria Jubilee hospitals’ expansion started. Montego Bay redevelopment and the Kingston waterfront redevelopment were started, and the town of Ocho Rios built. The Prospect Pen Satellite Earth Station was built to improve telecommunications. And the four-lane highway from Kingston to Spanish Town, among many other highways, was built.

Shearer and the JLP were making Jamaica into a First-World country. Others came to copy what we were doing. That unmatched performance did not guarantee the JLP another term. A silky-tongued salesman with a promise of ‘Better must come’ and ‘Power to the people’ derailed the progress. And the lesson to be learnt from that was: Promises are more powerful than performance.

Even in the face of abject performance like the People’s National Party (PNP) has displayed, promising to do better will win the day. The PNP has done it time after time. The PNP ‘Finsac’d’ the country in the 1990s but was able to win elections in 1997 and again in 2002.

The JLP needs to understand the psychology of the electorate. They need to understand that messaging, choice of words, and vocabulary-crafting can be done in such a way as to mould public opinion. These tools and techniques are so powerful they could make a dead donkey walk. They can make people vote against their own interest and vote for “puss inna bag”. The JLP would be well advised to not only invest in public opinion polling but in public opinion moulding.

The PNP has mastered the art of understanding the psychology of the voters, and it has cynically used that knowledge to its advantage and to the detriment of the country. The PNP understands the power of promising. That is why they have been searching for a promise that will capture the hearts and minds of the people. They have tried the “first in the family scholarship” and now they are talking about “land redistribution”. The problem the PNP has is that it formed the Government for 39 years and they did not do “that” (anything they may want to now come and promise). And as James Baldwin said: “I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do.”

Prime Minister, you and your Government are not to stop performing, but do not believe that performance alone will guarantee you a second term. The 2016 General Election was won because of the message of “From poverty to prosperity” and the promise of raising the income tax threshold to $1.5 million. So powerful was that promise that an estimated 30,000 Comrades did not come out to vote. It is hard for Comrades to vote for Labourites, but it was even harder for them to vote against something with such tangible benefits for them.

Before any election is called make sure there is another promise as powerful as the $1.5 million. The promise should be broad-based and should benefit people from Negril Point to Morant Point. The promise must be targeted at a particular constituency of the electorate. Do not waste any fiscal surplus the Government may have on any general good, like tax relief, be it income or consumption tax. Use the surplus to finance a new policy initiative that will capture the imagination of the people and melt the heart of the voters.

I have some ideas in mind. Because of the performance of your Government your promises will be believed. The people will say: “We can believe what you say because we see what you do!”