It would be an egregious error if People’s National Party (PNP) delegates miscalculatingly elect a one-trick pony as president of the party on November 7, 2020 believing they are electing a political polymath.

It would get potentially worse were they to vote on the unstable premise that it is “woman time now!” If for nothing else, delegates should never forget that “what’s past is prologue”.

Yet, to begin with, two things can be true at the same time. For while women make great leaders, not all great leaders are women. The same is true of men; they make great leaders, but not all great leaders are men. Accordingly, the criteria for party leader, and the subsequent decision about who is best suited to replace Dr Peter Phillips, must rest on those qualities and traits that are in the best interest of securing organisational stability, success, and harmony, but without the albatross of passive aggression or Machiavellian tactics towards dissenters. Consequently, the delegates’ choice cannot be transactional; it must be about electing a leader who is eminently suitable, flexible, prepared, and qualified to lead from in front, without constantly having to look over the shoulders. After all, it is as much about visible and visionary leadership, as it is about purpose-driven, assertive, and fearless leadership.

However, if PNP delegates behave in narrow-minded ways, cloak themselves in shallow atmospherics, dwell in the wilderness of idle pursuits, collectively relax in the cleavage of the “sleepy centre”, or foolishly fiddle with beauty-based gender politics, then it could find itself relegated to the political boondocks.

Those outcomes are not far-fetched. In fact, if the PNP mismanages itself, or screws up the choice it makes on November 7, then the party could quickly become a minority party — one that paves the way for the emergence of another formidable, forward-looking political movement. If delegates vote to just satisfy their hungriness for instant gratification — at the expense of broadening the party’s tent big enough to inspire, persuade, and accommodate independent voters, infrequent voters, and, yes, disaffected Labourites, though few in numbers nowadays — then they would have done the country a grave injustice, and hand the party an enormous disaster.

To the contrary, their collective votes must set the party on a path toward achieving sustainability, unity of purpose and mission, relevance, and political scalability. Therefore, it is entirely up to the over 3,000 delegates to weigh carefully the pros and cons of the leadership hardware and software that both contenders — Lisa Hanna and Mark Golding — possess, even as they evaluate how those leadership qualities could redound to benefit not only the PNP, but the wider Jamaican society.

Put another way, delegates should not vote based on settling old scores for what occurred in the run-up to, and in the aftermath of the September 2019 presidential elections between “OnePNP” and “Rise United”. Neither should they carry the painful legacy from the 2006 and 2008 presidential election to the November 7 polls. Picking at old scabs is not just disgusting; it is also disturbing. Those days are gone, even though much of the ongoing internal rifts had genesis in the 2006 and 2008 internal contests, where one candidate saw the presidency as an entitlement, while the other was presented as “the only best hope for the PNP”. That kind of politics of privilege and presumptuousness has not served the PNP well and will only promote organisational discord and institutionalisation of unyielding cliques or organisations within an organisation. Either way, both contribute to dysfunction.

Make no bones about it, it would be bordering on political suicide if delegates elected someone to lead the party who is unceremoniously encumbered with the heavy weights of controversy. Neither should delegates elect someone whose political fabric is terribly stained by a never-ending trail of inelegant rumours and murky tales.

Undoubtedly, allegations are exactly what they are — accusations. Lest we forget, everyone is “innocent until proven guilty”, notwithstanding painful verdicts that are rendered in the courts of public opinion.

Nevertheless, there is always something to be said about the politics of contrast. In this instance, one contender is constantly having to play defence to ward off potential erosion of reputational value, whilst the other contender plays the charisma offence. Still, if delegates ignore everything that currently exists in ‘open court’, such disregard would be tantamount to political nonfeasance (the failure to act where there is a duty to act). That kind of behaviour would also be akin to riding blindfolded mules of silliness right into the cul-de-sac of political bankruptcy, only for the riders to realise that the installation of a president whose presence, political antecedents, and pedigree present the party with great organisational challenges and political liabilities that are prodigiously damaging and bigger than its ability to manage, much less to overcome.

In conversations with quite a few delegates and ‘delegate-influencers’ — most of whom happen to believe my perspectives are crucial to their decision-making process — it became obvious that many remain conflicted in their choice of who they feel is best suited to become party president. One thing’s for sure, there are some serious misrepresentations and equally troubling stories about the performance of one of the candidates. Those misrepresentations require dispassionate evaluation. Fairness demands we not conveniently overlook them, because sunlight would expose hidden truths that may present better optics than antagonists would want delegates to know ahead of the election.

That candidate is Lisa Hanna. She is always elegant, and holds the mien of a beauty queen. She is smart, articulate, intelligent, but charmingly steely in disposition. Her arrival in PNP politics, circa 2007, was subitaneous, but still excited the massive crowd that gathered in St Ann to witness the announcement of her candidacy.

She subsequently won the St Ann South Eastern seat — a PNP bastion — by 7,158 votes to the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) 4,461, or by a margin of 2,697 votes or 37.7 per cent. She then improved her electoral performance in the 2011 General Election by polling 8,996 votes to the JLP’s 4,751. That 2011 performance, by Hanna, not only passed the 8,477 votes Seymour “Foggy” Mullings received in 1997, but it also reflected a gain of 1,838 votes or a 26 per cent improvement over 2007. It also showed her receiving 4,245 more votes, or 47 per cent over the JLP.

Now, let us pause a bit here. There was a realignment of electoral boundaries in 2011 in St Ann, which resulted in an increase in the number of voters in St Ann South Eastern. That further tightened the PNP’s grip on the seat that it has won in all parliamentary elections it has contested since the seat was created back in 1959. In the 2016 General Election, Hanna polled 8,142 votes; 3,245 or 40 per cent more than the JLP’s 4,877.

Let us fast-forward to September 2020. With 30,488 eligible electors on the voters’ list, Hanna received 5,150 — a mere 31 votes or 0.60 per cent more than the JLP’s 5,119. Compared with her 2016 performance, the 2020 vote tally for Hanna shows a significant 2,992 or 36.7 per cent vote decline (not a swing to the JLP), while the JLP gained 242 or five per cent more votes than it received in 2016.

Hanna is tenacious, openly competitive, politically stealthy, and equally ambitious. Her political ambition suffered a bad fate 2016 when she not only “came fifth” in the PNP vice-presidential contest, but underperformed significantly behind the four other contenders.

Her entry into representational politics, but specifically her entry into St Ann South Eastern is not the causation of the current divisions in her constituency. If anything, her presence and on-again, off-again relationship with key players in the constituency has exacerbated those divisions, which first manifested themselves as far back as in 2002, when Aloun N’dombet-Assamba was elected to replace the retiring Seymour Mullings.

There are noticeable correlations between Hanna’s leadership of the constituency, deterioration in relationships at the parochial level, and electoral performance in recent parish council elections. Her leadership of Region 2, which comprises the parishes of Trelawny and St Ann leaves much to be desired from a seat-retention perspective. The unsettled drama with the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) and Office of the Director of Public Prosecution (ODPP) over allegations about the awarding of contracts are unnecessary political distractions and negatives that should never accompany any aspirant seeking the presidency of the PNP.

Again, politics is about contrast. Leadership of a major political party, such as the PNP, requires more than a pageantry of pretence, it requires a fresh face that is unencumbered by doubts, unfounded rumours, or a reputation coloured by tenuous relationships. Having said that, it is also important to note that “one hand can’t clap” — the councillor and divisional core of St Ann South Eastern have some growing up to do. They must realise, sooner rather than later, that there is one Member of Parliament at a time; however much they loath that Member of Parliament. The ugliness and unnecessary power plays, ‘all-or-nothing’ posture, and inelegant outbursts could eventually flip a reliably safe PNP seat into a JLP one.

There is no sugar-coating it, the PNP is in serious trouble organisationally, financially, reputationally, and viably. If the PNP is to regain its viability, mission, relevance, and prestige, then it must break away from the clutches of the “sleepy centre”. It must modernise and repurpose its original aims and objectives in ways that are relatable, effective, and transformational. It must become a ‘disruptor’ in the political sense, and which, by the way, is not a synonym for political sabotage or chaos.

The party cannot slouch in the armchair version of its 1938 launch. The PNP must realise that things and times have changed since 1938, and so too must the party’s approach to ideation, innovative thinking, and modernity. That realisation must become the touchstone of its motivation and thrust towards policy development, outreach, engagement, communications, and, ultimately, problem-solving.

The party will not only have to transition in ways that set it apart philosophically and pragmatically from the current JLP governors. It will also have to formulate policies that allow it to present itself as the better alternative, ideologically and progressively, and as centre-left of the JLP. In other words, the PNP must reclaim its stolen identity and show the people that it can successfully implement and manage its own ideas.

Consequently, the PNP needs superfecta leadership. Mark Golding is that leader, hands down! He will listen to and value both convergent and divergent perspectives. Superfecta leadership requires a combination of transformational leadership, crisis leadership, turnaround leadership, visionary leadership, and empathetic leadership.

Admittedly, Mark Golding alone cannot fix the PNP, and he should not attempt to do so. However, his skill set as an accomplished lawyer, businessman, philanthropist, government minister, and successful politician, alongside other relevant experiences are necessary not only for the PNP to have, but also for Jamaica to continue to benefit from. His temperament and absolute determination will help the PNP regain its rightful place as the progressive and learning organisation it used to be, which is why I enthusiastically support his candidacy.

Golding’s work as an outstanding treasurer of the PNP, senator, and as the justice minister who led substantially on ganja and other justice reforms, and who helped to fast-track financial legislation through the Senate during the turbulent 2012-2016 period of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme is evidence enough of his capabilities, effectiveness, and stewardship.

Furthermore, it is never wise to put the same people in charge of fixing the very problems they are responsible for creating in the first place. The restoration of the PNP requires someone in whom the various arms, interests, and affiliates of the party can put their trust and feel confident that the leader has the pizazz to unite them and the entire party around and towards achieving the overarching aims and objectives of the party, as well as to inspire them to accomplish other new things, without ignoring the contribution and sacrifices of party workers on the ground.

Mark has it within him to attract a diverse group of Jamaicans under his “big tent” version of the PNP. And, yes, he can lead a reinvigorated, united, purpose-driven, and forward-thinking PNP to electoral success.