Healing and renewal doesn’t come from committees, reports
Fourteen years after the People’s National Party (PNP) set up and received the report of an appraisal committee, headed by Brian Meeks, then a professor in the Department of Government at The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, sources in Norman Manley’s party say many of the report’s critical recommendations are yet to be implemented. That speaks volumes.
“This is no sort of mouth-water stuff. It is meticulous and scientific work,” that was how the former general secretary of the People’s National Party (PNP) Donald Buchanan summarised the Meeks report in The Gleaner of January 6, 2008. In the same article, chairman of the PNP Robert Pickersgill described the report as a “good document”, and said, “It certainly will help the party.” Pickersgill also extolled the recommendations as far-reaching.
The PNP was warned that lethargy in the implementation of the Meeks report would be politically detrimental. Warnings emanated even from deep within the party’s inner ranks.
Recall that a year and half after he was soundly defeated in St Mary Western by the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Robert Montague, former junior minister Delano Franklyn, while still licking his political wounds, fired these foreboding blasts, in a Gleaner news story titled ‘PNP urgently needs renewal — Franklyn’: “ ‘I just don’t think we have given that report the rigorous attention it deserves. If we did, the party, I think, would be in a better position today,’ Franklyn tells The Sunday Gleaner.
“He says the PNP urgently needs renewal, which is largely what the Meeks report recommends.
“Last Monday’s embarrassing loss to the JLP in the West Portland by-election, he says, is evidence the PNP needs to change its tune.”
The PNP did not heed Franklyn’s political discharge.
Recall, too, that around two weeks after the PNP was rejected in the general election of February 25, 2016 the party established an appraisal committee, headed by Member of Parliament for St Andrew South Eastern Julian Robinson, to conduct a formal assessment of the reasons that contributed to its electoral defeat. The terms of reference of Meeks and Robinson’s appraisal committee shared almost all the characteristics of identical political twins.
In case you missed it, these were the broad areas covered by Meeks in late 2007 and Robinson’s report in early 2016 — philosophy and core values, accountability for performance, disciplinary matters, party structures, arms and affiliates, internal management/secretariat, candidate selection, recruitment/succession planning, media relations, and internal communication.
Sources in the PNP say that many of the crucial recommendations of the Robinson report, as was the case with the Meeks report, are yet to be implemented. Again, that speaks volumes.
A quick search online reveals that the PNP was warned that its failure to implement critical recommendations from Robinson’s report would become an Achilles heel.
The party did not listen.
A ghost created by 89 Old Hope Road did come back to haunt it on September 3, 2020. It was like déjà vu.
Committee fixation
The PNP, like so many in this country, is obsessed with committees, commission of studies, and studies of studies. Someone observed a long, long time ago that we are fixated on announcements and not successful implementation. That careless and lazy modus operandi has been diligently nurtured over many decades, especially by our two major political parties.
It explains to a large degree the lackadaisical approach with regard to implementing the findings of committees and commissions of inquiry in this country. Nonetheless, our obsession with committees and commissions of inquiries of varying sorts remains unquenched.
Here is a very recent reminder of that reality: ‘PNP appoints Professor Anthony Bogues as Policy Commission chair’. Last Monday’s Jamaica Observer reported, among other things: “The Opposition party said the commission has been tasked with defining the contemporary political philosophy of the PNP through meaningful policy positioning.”
The PNP has set up another appraisal committee. It will, doubtless, regurgitate the findings of its immediate predecessors. Implementation, in the meantime, is a stillbirth.
Why should we give two hoots, some may ask. You should because an anaemic Opposition weakens democracy.
Playing for time?
The birds, those reliable Black-Bellied Plovers, Bananaquits, and John Chewits, warble that Mark Golding, the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and president of the PNP, is playing for time, given this revelation last week by Member of Parliament for Westmoreland Central George Wright: “’I’m not going anywhere.”
The birds chirp that many in the PNP, as we say in local parlance, had “put dem pot pon fire” in the hope of a by-election before their annual conference, slated for September. The birds sing that many in the PNP were figuring that a by-election win would have shifted the Sword of Damocles from over the head of Golding.
They shriek that, with a parish council election in the offing, party organisation is trembling.
Golding, they sing, sits on giant political pins and needles and many of his chief acolytes are making frequent trips to the loo.
The birds trill that Golding is playing for time, and that explains the Policy Commission’s announcement last Monday.
This section of the PNP’s release last Monday did raise many questions internally about Golding’s grasp of political timeliness, the birds cheep: ” ‘The commission also intends to expand its work, and will make proposals about reforming the Jamaican political system, as well as establishing the key elements of a transformative political outlook. The team is enthusiastically working to produce a discussion paper by the first quarter of 2022, which will be presented to the party’s NEC [National Executive Council] after national consultation,’ the PNP said.”( Jamaica Observer, June 14, 2021)
Healing and renewal
I think Golding missed a golden opportunity to make a boss political move. In my humble view, Golding should have asked Professor Bogues to oversee the logistics, strategies, and related nuts and bolts to successfully fast-track the implementation of the outstanding recommendations of the Meeks and Robinson reports.
Fourteen years ago the Meeks report said, the PNP needed to heal, rebuild and renew. I don’t envisage that the consultations led by Bogues will likely result in a different political prescription.
Those who diligently follow the swirl of the political tea leaves, and even some who don’t, are well aware of the factors that are causing the creaking of political floorboards of 89 Old Hope Road.
The PNP, for the last 15 years, but particularly in the recent five, has been besieged by people who are preoccupied with the hatching of Trotsky-like plots.
As I see it, the PNP is now two parties. There is a seeming irreconcilability between those who are motivated only by unenlightened and personal political aggrandisement and those who still believe in the fleeting theory of democratic socialism as espoused by Norman and Michael Manley.
The inspiration of the latter group has disintegrated. The political gormandisers are winning at this time. They are rapidly shifting the PNP from a mass mobilisation force to an elitist, sectarian political clique.
The party is now nearly unrecognisable in the highways and byways. To move forward the PNP needs to ditch its Messiah complex. Jamaica is not PNP country and the PNP is not the party of near natural choice.
As I noted last week, but it bears repeating: If the PNP wants to become electable it needs to be modernised… and fast. That process needs to start with radical shifts. The PNP needs to, for example, put democratic socialism in its rear-view mirror.
As it was conceived and constructed, the PNP served its purpose for a time and a season. That time and season has ended.
Norman Manley’s party needs a new focus, mission, and vision. It would do well to avoid going back to the worst inclinations of the far left. It should also stay far from the extremisms of the far right.
I think the PNP needs to adopt a centrist orientation which is inclusive, embraces the importance of the inseparable relationship between production and consumption, situates capital as equally important as labour, and is unashamedly pro-business, pro-enterprise and pro-fairness, while not kowtowing to those who preach that the invisible hand of market must be allowed to regulate itself.
Whichever road the party takes, one thing is sure, the people of Jamaica and history will judge them.
Quiet, Parliament, No!
I like when Parliament is bouncy. Last Tuesday there was a very spirited debate in Parliament.
On Wednesday, our two national newspapers captured the activities of the Parliament with headlines: “Opposition leader, Speaker clash over House seating for MP George Wright’ ( The Gleaner). This newspaper screamed: ‘George Wright issue results in testy exchange over House seating’.
The Jamaica Observer reported, among other things: “Although embattled Westmoreland Central Member of Parliament (MP) George Wright was absent from yesterday’s sitting of the House of Representatives, Government and Opposition legislators engaged in a testy exchange over where he should be seated.
“The dispute started after Opposition spokesman on health Dr Morais Guy rose from the seat closest to the door to ask that questions he had tabled recently be answered by Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton.
“Dr Guy informed Speaker Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert that he had been assigned the same seat Wright had taken last week when Wright — who is now an independent member of the House, having resigned from the ruling Jamaica Labour Party — had turned up in Parliament ahead of the expiry of his leave of absence.”
I saw on social media that some people were mightily upset by the decibel levels last Tuesday. Maybe they want a quiet Parliament. I don’t want a quiet Parliament.
Where there are vibrant democracies, parliaments are lively. For me, once the business of the House is not hijacked by useless barracking and ranting adversarialism, I am satisfied. Healthy exchanges which elicit an adrenaline rush is good.
With all due respect, those who want a quiet Parliament best look to places like Peking, Moscow, Pyongyang, and elsewhere that are dying under the awful dead weight of boredom, rigidity, and political rigour mortis.
There was a time in this country when we took our political disagreements to the streets, whether during, in the middle of, and/or after an election campaign. That did not work well for us.
Leave our representatives to vigorously debate contentious matters in Parliament. It is better than a return to the public pavements out of due season.
Walter Rodney
This is good news, very good news: “The Guyana Government on Thursday announced that it will honour prominent historian, political activist, and academic Dr Walter Rodney nearly 41 years after he was assassinated here.” ( Jamaica Observer, June 10, 2021)
National atonement is critical to the political and mental health of a nation. I have long argued in this space the both the JLP and the PNP need to atone for the atrocities that have been committed during periods when they held office. Thankfully Prime Minister Andrew Holness started that process two years into his first term.
Recall that Holness had apologised for the hurt caused by the 1963 Coral Gardens massacre and the Tivoli Gardens joint security forces operation in May 2010.
The PNP, on the other hand, up to now, has not seen it fit to apologise for the numerous wicked acts which happened on its watch that have caused serious, lasting, emotional, and financial injury to large numbers of Jamaicans. Golding should change that rotten record.
Were the PNP to do the honourable thing it would show the party in a more positive light and, doubtless, improve its waning political stocks.
Golding is involved in a dress rehearsal for the office of prime minister. We must pay keen attention to his actions and utterances, or lack thereof.
Many years ago I recommended in this space that we needed a cathartic mechanism, possibly like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that South Africa had after racial apartheid was outlawed, to fully ventilate barbaric acts like the 1976 State of Emergency, Rema political evictions, Green Bay Massacre, and the Eventide Home fire. Its therapeutic value, I believe, would be immense, and it could serve as a conduit to facilitate closure of many of the gaping political and emotional wounds that are still raw.
We cannot simply forget and move on. Those who think time alone will heal all wounds are making a sad mistake.
To begin to really move forward,we first need a full apology from those (and/or their successors) who had the power to prevent the mentioned monstrosities.
Garfield Higgins is an educator and journalist. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com