THE façade the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) had erected to convince Jamaicans that it was united, and a Government in waiting, came crumbling down yesterday with an ear-piercing bang that had scores of Comrades shivering.

The party has been in turmoil since its humiliating defeat in the September 2020 General Election, with a November internal contest between Mark Golding and Lisa Hanna to replace Dr Peter Phillips as the party’s president further opening major wounds.

But since then the party has been trying to convince Jamaicans that it has been working to heal the wounds and that its leadership was joining hands to provide a credible Opposition to the Andrew Holness-led Administration.

Last month, the party went public with news of its unity push with the person given the job to lead the charge, former General Secretary Maxine Henry-Wilson, warning the Comrades that without unity the PNP would be in serious trouble.

“The public can’t believe that you have the capacity to lead if internally you can’t even talk to each other properly. So the work that the party has to do, and is doing, has to be brought to the fore, and the disunity has to take a back seat.

“…It is not going to disappear, but we all need to have a larger purpose around which we are revolving,” Henry-Wilson told the Jamaica Observer days before senior members of the party embarked on a team-building exercise in which they used an intricate rope design to move objects to their proper positions.

But any pretence of unity disappeared yesterday with some senior PNP insiders pointing their daggers at Golding and blaming him for the latest rift, while others pointed to his detractors and charged that they were embarking on a coup to defy the will of the majority of delegates who voted in last November’s presidential race.

This followed a statement from the vice-presidents Damion Crawford, Wykeham McNeill, and Mikael Phillips, and the party’s chairman, Phillip Paulwell, that they had resigned their positions with immediate effect.

This was quickly followed by word from the chairman of the PNP Youth Organisation (YO) Krystal Tomlinson that she had also thrown in the towel with immediate effect.

Phillips, who had been nominated to return as a vice-president, also withdrew his nomination just before nominations closed yesterday.

“We had engaged the wider leadership of the party in good faith negotiation to avoid a further widening of the internal rift, recognising that the party leader had declared publicly that the party could not countenance another divisive internal election at this time,” said the three VPs and the chairman in a joint release.

“We arrived at this decision today recognising the risk of another internal election before the wounds of the last presidential elections were adequately healed,” they added.

According to the four, discussions within the party had been ongoing for more than three weeks, with some officers volunteering to step aside for the sake of unity.

“However, we concluded that the sincerity of certain members of the leadership was not forthcoming, and that the minimalist effort towards unity was a charade that is inimical to a genuine pursuit of unity.

“Despite all the reasonable efforts to broker a platform of unity, there were otherwise covert attempts to sabotage the goal of peace and harmony with a plan to hoard the available positions in line with previous public statements made by the leader, who pronounced a lack of trust for persons who did not support him in his campaign for leadership and his preference to surround himself with only individuals who overtly endorsed his candidacy,” the four said.

They declared that they were not abandoning the PNP and would continue to work for its development as they pointed fingers at Golding.

“The most recent Achilles heel of the PNP has been the disunity that has plagued the party. The level of disunity has deepened since the most recent internal election, where the victor has seemingly NOT acknowledged that unity is ultimately the responsibility of the victorious.

“We further believe that the disunity and display of underhandedness have crippled the spirit and effectiveness of the Unity Committee,” read the joint statement.

In his response to the four, Golding said that some allegations were made in their resignation letter which are not accurate; however, these will be dealt with in the appropriate party forum.

“Discussions with respect to the four vice-presidential candidates were attempted, but unfortunately these did not lead to consensus. It seems that the response of these four officers was to resign en bloc. While I am saddened by this action, their resignations are accepted. Nevertheless, I remain willing to work with these senior Comrades in the best interests of the party,” said Golding.

“I also reaffirm my commitment to building unity in the party, acknowledging that we all have important roles to play in achieving this. Jamaica needs the PNP more than ever, as hardships and insecurity stalk this land under the JLP [Jamaica Labour Party] Government. I will continue to stride forth with all willing Comrades as we build back our party, ready to deliver competent, caring and honest government for our beloved Jamaica whenever we are called upon by the Jamaican people,” added Golding, who said the party will issue a further statement in due course.

In her resignation letter, Tomlinson also took potshots at the leadership of the party as she pointed to what she said were solid achievements of the YO under her leadership.

According to Tomlinson, there were people trying to impact the outcome of the upcoming YO elections to “feed the rabid appetite of a cabal that seeks to secure power in the organisation by any means necessary”.

She added: “I will not continue to serve where there is a wavering commitment to integrity; where parish and region chairmen engineer and facilitate fraudulent behaviour and have the audacity to parade themselves as ‘untouchables’ because of their proximity to the leadership of the party.”