Some might be familiar with this local saying: “Starving man say cane nuh have no joint,” meaning desperation causes some people to distort the truth to suit their agendas. Altering reality for especially the unsuspecting is their end game. This tactic is used especially in politics. There was plenty evidence of its use leading up to and especially during the week before the last general election.

At their most recent post-general election presser the People’s National Party (PNP) demonstrated that they are still married to the mentioned tactic. They remain wrong and strong after three straight defeats. The PNP will continue to massively use the ‘starving man’ tactic, except there is a radical shift in leadership and direction at its very top.

I am no clairvoyant, but I forecast that the Mark Golding-led Opposition PNP will continue to be obstructionist. There will be frequent walk-outs in Parliament and related orchestrated delays, disruptions, and distractions, I forecast. Members of Parliament (MP) in constituencies won by the PNP will lead some big demonstrations, I believe. Dislocation is very likely.

SOMETHING VERY ROTTEN

Those who ignore the reality of political gravity are bound to experience a crash landing. I don’t believe it was an oversight that the leader of the Opposition and PNP President Mark Golding did not — like the rest of the attendees — stand when Prime Minister Andrew Holness walked from inside King’s House to the platform to deliver his swearing-in speech. It was not a lapse, that Golding did not stand like the rest of the audience when the prime minister completed his address.

As I understand it, protocol dictates that the audience stands at least in the first mentioned instance. The second is debatable. Golding has been president of the PNP and leader of the Opposition since 2020. Golding was a member of the Senate from 2007 to 2017 and served as Minister of Justice from 2012 to 2016 in the Portia Simpson Miller-led Administration. He was elected as MP for St Andrew Southern in a by-election in 2017. I don’t believe Golding and his handlers are all oblivious of the mentioned protocol. Something is uniquely rotten at 89 Old Hope Road. I have been pointing to the putrid mess there for a long time.

My piece here on March 2, 2025 was titled ‘Win big; avoid ‘worse nightmare’. I said, among other things: “To prevent a bad repeat of the worst nightmare scenarios of September 2007 to December 2011, the Andrew Holness-led Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) needs to do far more than just win the upcoming parliamentary election, our 19th since Universal Adult Suffrage in 1944. The JLP needs to win big, at a minimum, 42 — two-thirds of the 63 seats.”

Many who watch the swirling of our political tea leaves will recall that, on September 3, 2007, a rejuvenated JLP, headed by Bruce Golding, defeated the People’s National Party (PNP) 32 to 28. Portia Simpson Miller, who had succeeded P J Patterson as PNP president, was defeated in her first attempt to secure her own mandate. She hesitated to accept defeat. Thirteen days later she told the country that, under her leadership, the PNP would have been the Administration’s worst nightmare. She executed. The advance of the Golding Administration was frustrated at every step of the way. Were the JLP to win in the numbers of 2007, the worst nightmare scenarios would be repeated, and multiplied.

As I see it, the fact Golding did not observe a long-standing protocol at the swearing-in ceremony is confirmation that the Opposition PNP has already launched Nightmare 2.0. Those who want to fool themselves otherwise, can. Doubtless they also believe that the Earth is flat and not spherical.

One does not need to have a degree in logic or political science to realise that Golding and the top-tier leadership of the PNP still believe that their trump card to Jamaica House is ceaseless attacks on the credibility of Prime Minister Holness. The relentless attacks on Holness via the route of his statutory declaration did help the PNP to gain important traction, but it was not sufficient to topple the Administration, and it was not sufficient to disable the rock star appeal of Holness among some ordinary Jamaicans, and in particular female voters.

For three and half years the PNP hammered Holness on the issue of his uncertified statutory declarations. It was one of the nastiest and most brutal bombardments in local politics for decades.

Golding and his handlers in 2020 had picked up where Dr Peter Phillips, former leader of the Opposition and PNP president, had failed. Recall Dr Phillips’s constant innuendos about Holness’s half-finished house. Phillips had totally misjudged the national zeitgeist. The fact is the majority of ordinary Jamaicans want a nice house. That has been a primary aspiration of most Jamaicans for decades. Predictably, in the 2020 General Election, Phillips and the sowing of the seeds of ‘bad mind’, were rejected in a landslide defeat. The JLP won 49 seats and the PNP 14.

Golding evidently has learned very little from Phillips’s big and costly errors. As I see it, something continues to be very rotten at 89 Old Hope Road. The PNP, especially since 2016, has held on like a fully-clasped vice-grip to a path which will continue to guarantee that its stays in Opposition.

I anticipate some will say that the PNP came close to winning the recent general election and that 28 up from 14 seats is a massive achievement. I see this political self-defence mechanism being massively spewed by the RiseUnited faction of the PNP on social.

DELUSION ON STEROIDS

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!

For those who just landed from Mars, our electoral system is married into a reality called first-past-the-post. Let me illustrate: In our general and municipal corporation elections, the candidate with the most votes in each constituency/division becomes the Member of Parliament (MP) for a constituency or councillor for a municipal corporation/formerly parish council. And candidates from other parties get nothing. This is how the first-past-the-post system, which we inherited from the United Kingdom, works.

Previously, I drew on two famous works by Max Weber, celebrated German sociologist, who famously said: “Parties exist in a house of power.” This means to win and/or retain State power. Minus that house of power to exist in and political parties soon wither and then die. This is a settled matter in politics. As I see it, the PNP has lost direction and sensible conviction. It is fusty.

DANGER AHEAD!

This Holness Administration needs to take great care that it does not fall into the political sinkhole that the PNP is now trapped. Some years ago I said here that voters were concerned with: “What have you done for me lately, and what can you do for me soon?” The era of individuals sacrificing themselves, their careers, for political leaders, and/or their party on the altar of political ideology are dead. It is a very different world, today.

Three Sundays ago I said, among other things, here: “Some political scholars posit that unless a political party can govern for at least three cycles — 15 years in our case — at minimum and/or longer it cannot achieve transformative changes. I agree.

The JLP has just started its third-consecutive term. It is rare for a political party to get a fourth-consecutive term in a participatory democracy. There is an inevitable and natural reality of decrease, decline, attrition, and staleness related to forming the Administration for three consecutive terms. This is a fact. There are dark clouds ahead.

I said here before the September 3, 2025 General Election 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. If the JLP does not quickly fix its Achilles heel of politics it can kiss the delivering of its commitments goodbye.” The great urgency of now will not wait.

As I see it, there are dangers ahead for the Holness Administration. In his swearing-in speech Prime Minister Holness reiterated the massive achievements of the last nine years. By any objective measure these are landmark advances.

These are irrefutable facts. The previous Holness Administrations have kept the dollar stable. The debt was massively reduced. This created fiscal space which has facilitated decent increases in salaries for public sector workers; improved social and physical infrastructures nationally, such as roads, hospitals, clinics, police stations, and big upgrades to equipment used by the security forces, etc. The previous Holness Administrations kept our international credit rating moving in a positive direction, capital flight is negligible; inflation is in low single digits, crime is massively trending down, murders in particular have nose-dived. Unemployment is the lowest since we started to keep those records. Macroeconomically, the last two Holness Administrations have done splendidly.

This Holness Administration would do well to understand that the admittedly splendid macroeconomic song which has been a mega hit in the last nine years has started to fall off the hit charts as far as many ordinary Jamaicans are concerned. This new Holness Administration urgently needs a new mega hit song. The lyrics must centre on tangible and sustained economic growth of at minimum 3 per cent. It must register in the pockets and must be visible on the dinner tables of thousands more, especially ordinary Jamaicans.

Consider this: “Prime Minister Andrew Holness says in this term the Government will craft a new medium-term economic plan designed not just to preserve discipline but to unlock opportunities and improve the lives of Jamaicans. He said the plan will focus on boosting long-term growth and productivity, deepening financial inclusion and resilience, and strengthening social protection for vulnerable households. It will seek the right balance – fiscal responsibility alongside catalytic investments in infrastructure, human capital and innovation.” (Jamaica Information Service [JIS], September 18, 2025)

Hit the ground running is absent here. I was expecting to hear the prime minister say we already have a new and improved growth plan and within the first 100 days we will be executing it. How long will the crafting of this new plan take? In my piece here on August 31, 2025 I forecast that the JLP would win the general election. I said, among other things: “There will be no honeymoon for the winners or losers.” My hope was that the winner — and the loser — would have positively hit the ground running. Those who continue to nod their heads like a cuckoo clock no matter the result/direction of the Administration and Opposition are blind. That kind of voluntary blindness is a large part of the reason Jamaica has got poorer, weaker, and less respected for decades. We best affirm our political values by the lending of critical support not silly ‘Ostrich-ism’.

CHEAPER ENERGY, URGENT!

On the point of silly ‘Ostrich-ism’, one of the most nationally unfriendly contracts ever negotiated was the one with the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) while Phillip Paulwell was minister of energy.

Several times before the general election, Minister of Transport, Telecommunication and Energy Daryl Vaz said: “The terms under the current licence have yielded electricity prices which are amongst the highest in the region. The arrangements are deeply flawed and in need of significant reform.”

Cheap energy is basic to meaningful and sustained economic growth. That has been the case since Prometheus, a Titan in Greek mythology, is said to have stolen fire from the gods and given it to humankind. The Industrial Revolution which some scholars say began in 1760 happened because of cheap/available energy. Vaz must fulfil all pre-election commitments on cheaper energy. And soon!

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

HOLNESS… must achieve at least 3 per cent growthNaphtali Junior

Opposition Leader Mark Golding appears to be checking his messages before the start of the swearing-in ceremony for Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness at King’s House in St Andrew. Photo: Joseph Wellington

VAZ… reduced electricity cost must be his mission (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

SIMPSON MILLER… promised to be the Government’s worse nightmare.