Dear Editor,

The People’s National Party (PNP) are now stumbling in the dark after the walloping they received from the Jamaica Labour Party (or, rather, Prime Minister Andrew “Brogad” Holness) in the last general election.

That party now suffers from organisational disunity, operational deficiencies, and fear the looming threat of losing even worse at the local government elections, which are expected next year February or earlier.

One may say that the election machinery is in gear, with increased road repairs, sidewalk ‘painting’, and the PNP’s rallies, which come dangerously close to breaching the COVID-19 protocols. But taking an objective look at the two figureheads of the parties it is obvious that Prime Minister Andrew Holness isn’t bothering too much, while Opposition Leader Mark Golding is trying too hard.

It seems as if the prime minister (and his party) could use his youth, his marketability, and his trendy moniker of “Brogad” to snag some more seats for his local councillors.

Meanwhile, Golding has miles to travel to become a hip, popular man of the people like the prime minister. His attempts at wearing casual outfits, using the latest social media platforms (such as TikTok), and speaking patois don’t seem to be connecting. In fact, trying to speak Jamaican got him into big trouble when he talked about “getting wicked”.

In my opinion, he shouldn’t bother trying to play the popularity contest game. What worked to get the prime minister a 49-14 victory may not work for anyone else, including Golding. What he should do is to start mending rifts in the PNP, and try to get all of the members (including the ones that would disagree with me) to come to a consensus on the next move for the party and the country at large.

This would be a good time to speak to candidates for councillors and have one-on-one discussions about the issues to be solved in their areas — urban councillors should focus on the rate of development and how they can do better urban planning, while rural councillors should focus on stimulating their microeconomy and infrastructure expansion.

Also, instead of trying to be hip, it would be better if he remained true to himself. He may think that being an uptown investment banker will make him unrelatable, but it is worse for him to pretend to be someone he isn’t. It would be best to focus on objective, non-partisan, solutions to problems such as crime, corruption, COVID-19, etc, and consult economists, lawyers, and various experts before he makes decisions so he can bring level-headed solutions to the table.

Instead of trying to follow Brogad, Golding should set his own trend of breaking the practice of demagoguery that has characterised partisan politics ever since this country’s Independence, where leaders are selected primarily because of popularity and not competence, which, throughout history, has oftentimes resulted in blind leaders leading blind people.

While I may harbour distrust of either side of the green and orange spectrum, when the PNP presidential election was being conducted I vouched for Mark Golding to win based on his perceived level-headedness, and he seemed like the man who could bring some semblance of cohesion to the party, along with problem-solving skills that could be used after years of mediocrity and demagoguery on the PNP’s part.

Perhaps he’ll prove me right that there can be diamonds in the rough within that organisation. Then again, perhaps not. But we’ll see.

Marcus White

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