“Now what?” That was the first question which Cabinet Secretary Richard Wilson (now Lord Wilson) asked Tony Blair during their first meeting in 2001 at 10 Downing Street in London, the official residence and office of the prime minister of the United Kingdom.

Taken aback by the question — but still revelling in the sweetness of victory — Blair responded: “What do you mean? ‘Now what?’ ”

Anyway, Tony Blair, a top-notch lawyer by training and trade, quickly caught on. His cabinet secretary meant that winning a landslide victory was the comparatively easy part of the political engagement. Governing and delivering meaningful results which improved the lives of especially ordinary Britons was the bigger, the real challenge.

Here at home the delivering of timely and material results in a sustained manner, especially for ordinary Jamaicans, is also the bigger, real challenge ahead for Dr Andrew Holness.

He and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) have secured an unprecedented third-straight term at Jamaica House. Three Sundays before election day I said here that there would be no honeymoon for the winner and the loser of our 19th general election since universal adult suffrage in 1944.

It is day four since the people of Jamaica rejected Mark Golding and the People’s National Party (PNP). It’s the PNP’s third-straight defeat. Already folks are asking: “Now what?” In short order, citizens will expect and are right to demand tangible improvements in representation and results from the elected and selected political directorate, and indeed all public officials.

Amid all the celebrations, the governance dial must now immediately be reset to business unusual, positively so, in the material and sustained interest/benefit of especially ordinary Jamaicans. It’s non-negotiable. Continued and real improvements will have to start registering on the political dashboard soon.

Recall a month before last week’s election I said here that the JLP would be forced to call an early general election if it did not deliver on its commitments three years into a new term. Oh, recall, too, that just a month after Golding became PNP president, I said here he would be the second PNP leader not to become prime minister. I am no clairvoyant. It’s just the mood on the streets.

WHY THE PNP LOST

The PNP today is a political equivalent of Bolo Yeung in 70s karate movies. Recall Bolo was always clobbered by Bruce Lee. Some in the PNP will delude themselves that they won the general election. Their reasons and motivations are obvious to all but the discerning.

Apply whatever fuzzy maths you want, the PNP lost the election. Apply whatever excuses you want, the PNP lost. The JLP won the popular vote and the most seats. Facts!

Now that the PNP has lost its third-consecutive general election the lacerations — especially from the bitter leadership battles between Peter Bunting and Dr Peter Phillips, Lisa Hanna and Mark Golding — will burst wide open again, I believe. Those wounds are from as far back as 2006 when Portia Simpson Miller defeated Dr Peter Phillips to become PNP president. Recall Simpson Miller also defeated Dr Phillips in July 2008 in a severely acrimonious battle. The Rubicon was crossed.

Those loyal to Mark Golding tried their best to paper-over the severe fractures in the PNP. Anyone with a modicum of understanding of the political tea leaves was not fooled by their ‘face cards’, as we say in local parlance. Indeed, one of the major reasons for the defeat of the PNP last Wednesday was the lingering divisions between RiseUnited and OnePNP. The acrid leadership battles since 2006 are millstones to the PNP. It needs a ‘bath’ at Rockfort.

The leadership of Mark Golding is a political death gasp for the PNP, I believe. I said so here several times before the holding of last Wednesday’s general election. Golding, during almost five years at the helm, had a golden opportunity to unite the PNP. Instead, his leadership approach adopted the divisive persona which pervaded the acidic leadership battles in the PNP over the last 20 years.

Also, there was always a lingering suspicion in the wider political arena that whenever Golding spoke and/or acted, politically he was being controlled by a ventriloquist. As I see it, Mark Jefferson Golding never really satisfied the majority of the electorate that he was his own man.

The PNP’s trailer-load of unfundable promises was a political death roll. The promises of billions here, billions there, and billions everywhere sounded and smelled like confetti money. The illusions failed. While the PNP was trumpeting multi-billion-dollar promises, folks were shouting, “Show us the money first, and show us the implementation timetable second.” The PNP covered their ears. A critical mass concluded that the PNP wanted to raid our barns.

The PNP was low voltage on message, money, and momentum. These are the critical 3Ms of politics. I warned them here several times that simply shouting, “Time Come,” from the byways and highways was just not good political sense.

The PNP needed to convince a majority of voters that they had dispensed with their baggage of profligate spending. They needed to convince a majority that they were no longer the party of tax and spend, borrow and spend, high unemployment, especially chronic youth unemployment, high inflation, high crime, crippling social decadence, and business collapse. They tried hard to convince Jamaicans that the PNP, under Golding, was a new creation and a brand new man. Their words did not match actions.

The message and the messenger are equally important in politics. A majority of voters were not convinced by yesterday’s men and women and their display of an appalling lack of intellectual control, especially on the hustings. The PNP’s tactic of using yesterday’s men and women to indulge in drive-by shootings on people’s reputations, and character assassinations was just extremely distasteful. Folks are no longer frightened and/or impressed by those who coddle the lowest common denominator. Peddlers of backwardness are a spent force. Their rotten scaffolding is easy to see — except to those who are conveniently blind and those trapped in a suffocating time warp. Quite frankly, some of the PNP’s primary message salespersons almost always exuded the look of individuals with sulphur bitters and/or iced-water running through their veins.

The resurrection of the bad mind’ ghost in 2025 by the PNP was the final nail in their coffin. It did not work in 2016 or 2020. Their persistent and unsubstantiated attacks on Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness, as they did in 2020, failed. The PNP squandered a great opportunity to reinvent itself.

WRONG DERBY!

During the election campaign the PNP’s leadership consistently emitted the vibe of a jockey and a horse that were prepared for a derby in the 1990s, but were not let out of the starting gates until 2025.

One of the PNP’s primary campaigning tactic was the blaming of others for myriad things which they are guilty. This old and sick Joseph Goebbels (German Nazi politician) tactic did not fool especially discerning and uncommitted voters. That kind of campaigning tactic is simply old hat in the Information Age. Today, nearly every Jamaican has a cellular phone with access to the Internet so they can fact-check anyone at any time.

The PNP needs some new and adroit jockeys, and better bred horses, going forward. It has an elderly image which it needs to dispense with like yesterday. If the PNP is to avoid being relegated to the category of pressure group it must reinvent and rebrand consistent with the aspirational needs of today’s Jamaicans.

“The PNP cannot ever be relegated to pressure group status,” some with protest.

Really, all is possible in the political arena.

Political parties exist to win and retain State power. Max Weber, renowned German sociologist, historian, and jurist, who, among other things, studied the relationship between religion and capitalism, and developed a method of interpretive sociology, did seminal work on the relevance of political parties and democracies. In two of his many celebrated works —
The Theory of Social and Economic Organization and
Politics as a Vocation — Weber examines the history, ecosystems, and huge relevance of political parties. Weber said: “Parties exist in a house of power,” this means to win and or retain State power. Without that house of power to exist in, political parties soon wither and then die.

Doubtless some will quiz, “Higgins, why do you care whether the PNP withers and/or dies?”

I believe in a strong democracy. A strong democracy is vital to our development. A strong democracy, contrary to what some believe, does not mean an Opposition which, only “opposes” simply because it can. To me, a strong democracy is one in which an Opposition keeps the Administration consistently very sober. Why? Absolute power corrupts even the best of us.

SO, WHAT NOW?

I believe it will be déjà vu all over again at 89 Old Hope Road given the defeat last Wednesday. The political daggers are out already. Horse-trading has started already. Recriminations have started already and frequent visit to the bathroom have continued unabated. There will be bloodletting.

A leadership contest to replace Mark Golding will have to be done quickly, I believe. Information in the public domain indicates that Phillip Paulwell is desirous of becoming PNP president and leader of the Opposition. It is not a secret that Damion Crawford and Dr Dayton Campbell want the top job. Some sources say Mikael Phillips wants to replace Golding, for among other things, to fulfil the failed ambitions of his father, Dr Peter Phillips, who holds the unenviable record of being the first president of the PNP and leader of one of the two major political parties not to become prime minister of Jamaica. Some say Lisa Hanna is waiting in the wings to make a grand return and become the second woman to lead the PNP. And some whisper loudly that Peter Bunting will fight tooth and nail to lead the PNP.

I believe a trail of political dead bodies will be left whichever of these individuals replace Golding and his lieutenants. The PNP, as I see it, will need to go through a period of catharsis and then therapy. For starters, it will need to do a lot of mea culpas with respect particularly to its history of economic mismanagement of the resources of this country. It will need to apologise for the great atrocities which have taken place during past PNP administrations. And it will need to strike some new chords which have national reach and relevance. The ‘same ole some ole’ will not, first and foremost, help Jamaica and/or help the PNP going forward.

We cannot sidestep the huge relevance of our two major political parties in the modus operandi of our daily social, economic, and political affairs. Benjamin Disraeli, who many political scholars agree was the Father of Modern British Conservatism, famously said: “Without party, parliamentary government is impossible.” I agree.

Some will inquire, “What of a new political party to totally replace the PNP?”

I am not a clairvoyant. A third party that is viable enough to win State power is far, far away, I believe.

VICTORY FOR COMMON SENSE

As I see it, last Wednesday’s victory by the JLP was a win, among other things, for common sense. I said here on October 23, 2015: “There are some who foolishly believe that, given even the best of choices, Jamaicans will always choose the worst of options. I don’t subscribe to that ultra-pessimistic view. Our history shows, time and time again, that when the majority of Jamaicans have had enough pain, and experienced enough hardships, a critical mass responds with fiery social and/or political actions admittedly tantamount only to a quasi-revolution.” Many voters remember vividly especially the traumas of the 1970s and 1990s.

Any politician who believes that, going forward, a majority of Jamaicans will sacrifice our aspirational needs on the altar of ideology, consistent incompetence, and/or promises minus real evidence of a practical timeline and funding is in la-la land.

Garfield Higgins is an educator and journalist. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com

Garfield Higgins

Scores of Comrades in Sam Sharpe Square, St James, for a PNP mass rally recently. (Photo: Philp Lemonte)

Damion Crawford (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

Dayton Campbell (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

Peter Bunting (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

Lisa Hanna (Photo: Observer file)