I note with growing consternation, and sometimes laughter, the many commentaries about the massive ‘murderation’ meted out to the People’s National Party (PNP) at the hands of a marauding Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) election machinery and a well-crafted public relations strategy focused on its performance. These commentaries are all focused on what the PNP did not do, how low the voter turnout was, and vote-buying allegations.

I find most of the commentaries to be grossly insulting to the Jamaican people, especially the vote-buying claims. What all of this shows is the utter contempt that many in this country have for the sensibilities of the Jamaican people. This is coupled with the entitlement attitude that many have, in the sense that they believe they are the only ones who should run this country.

The PNP and its army of minions do not seem to get it that the country’s rejection of it started in 2007, only receiving a reprieve by a set of unfortunate circumstances that brought down the then JLP Government by 2011. As soon as the Jamaican people got a leader they could go for in the JLP the party was back in power four years later. Consequently, the JLP won every election held after.

I will never forget the victory speech given by Andrew Holness in 2016, in which he talked about some people believing their names are on the “land title of Jamaica”. The PNP spent 18.5 unbroken years in power and their output could not keep them there any longer. There was corruption, waste, mismanagement, and the destruction of the hopes and dreams of many Jamaicans.

The slaughtering at the polls on September 3, 2020 wasn’t a matter of vote-buying, it was the culmination of the process of rejecting the PNP that started in 2007. People are just tired of the PNP, plain and simple.

I will say further, the people had good grounds to reject the PNP. The JLP, over the last 4.5 years, has performed so well that, for the first time in history, the governing party could campaign almost exclusively on what it has done. All the PNP could muster against that was many things had “been in the pipeline” from they were there. But, as Floyd Green retorted in one of the past debates, “The PNP is the pipeline national party, as they laid pipes and never connected them to a water source.” And that is at the root of the continued rejection of the PNP by the Jamaican electorate.

In some ways I want to encourage the PNP and its defenders to continue thinking that the election loss was because of vote-buying, as the more they posit that insult the more the Jamaican people will make sure they return all JLP Members of Parliament in five years’ time, and possibly taking 11 more of the few seats they now have.

Stop insulting the Jamaican people; they know what they rejected.

tyronelewis272@gmail.com