Two red flags have emerged on the horizon of the People’s National Party (PNP) in recent times. No pun intended.

Firstly, a former general secretary of the party, Paul Burke, allegedly warned that the outspoken St Catherine Southern Member of Parliament (MP) Fitz Jackson’s sustained campaign against the country’s major banks, with respect to what he regards as their draconian and unconscionable fees, to the extent that he has initiated a lawsuit in this regard, could jeopardise the party’s future attempts to raise funds from the private sector for election purposes.

In the meantime, Clarendon South Western MP, the PNP’s Lothan Cousins, has accused the private sector of propping up the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) while ignoring the needs of the poor. And he did not stop there. In a no-holds-barred tirade to party faithful, the MP blasted the private sector for being afraid to have the PNP in power because that political organisation would protect the people. He also observed that many young people were fleeing the country because of the difficulties they are facing under a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government.

Against this backdrop of onslaught against big business interests, the potent question that pundits and other keen observers may wish to ask is whether the PNP is in the process of committing political suicide. It is no secret that “big money” played a pivotal role in the 2020 General Election. And to add fuel to the fire, it must be understood that in the very final analysis politics and big money are always intertwined in a capitalist State, which Jamaica has become, whether wittingly or unwittingly.

Historically, the JLP has always been perceived as the “big man party”. This perception also fuelled the idea that it is also a “brown man party” because, from a demographic standpoint, most of the nation’s wealth is to be found in the coffers of the brown man, although over 80 per cent of the population is black.

From this same perspective there emerges an intriguing irony as the JLP, as established by its founder National Hero Sir Alexander Bustamante, was supposed to have been the party that looks out for the interests of the peasantry and working class. The PNP, on the other hand, at the outset, comprised mostly of black middle- and upper middle-class personalities who espoused democratic socialism. The conundrum in which this fledgling nation found itself became even more curios when a brown man, in the charismatic mould of a Michael “Joshua” Manley, emerged as the most popular and loved leader of his time in the PNP.

Fast-forward to the present and the country has two brown men at the helm of both the JLP and the PNP — Andrew Michael Holness and Mark Jefferson Golding. In the case of the PNP, for all intents and purposes, its President Golding is a white man, who also epitomises in many ways big business interests. As an aside, it should prove very interesting to see how MP Cousins relates with his Comrade leader pertaining to the issues he has raised.

What a ‘hataclaps’!

Not to mention the fact that, at a recent National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, former Prime Minister P J Patterson, once revered as the “Fresh Prince” and “great black hope”, seemingly endorsed Golding’s tenure as an idea whose time had come.

In all of this, it must be understood that political parties all over the world can and do evolve into many strange dimensions. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party in the United States are a classic example of this morphing, whereby the former did embrace slavery and was most racist while the latter, especially under Abraham Lincoln, did fight to abolish slavery and sought to establish a society in which all men and women have inalienable rights. But it was the Democratic Party that gave the USA its first black president and subsequently its first black female vice-president, who also happens to be of Jamaican vintage.

By the way, to put the icing on the cake, the word labour in politics has had a socialist connotation as well as denotation as can be seen with respect to the British Labour Party, which is a socialist entity.

It is understood that, originally, some founding members of the PNP had been toying with the idea of naming the party a labour organisation, but a wily Bustamante, infused with his trade union instinct, jumped the gun. So, even to this day, while the PNP is enamoured with the British Labour Party, the JLP is seen as more in tune with the Conservative Party. Oh, and finally, it is well accepted, if not openly, certainly behind closed doors, that while the JLP has a close affinity to the modern-day Republican Party, the PNP, on the other hand, is affiliated to the Democratic Party. Oh, what a tangled web!

But back to the vexing matter at hand. The PNP, ever since the turbulent 70s, had become estranged from big business interests, who helped overwhelmingly to throw them out of office in 1980. However, the stringent policies, which were said to favour their interests, and the unlikeable posture of its leader Edward Phillip George Seaga, helped by an effective demonising campaign hatched and pursued by the PNP soon catapulted the PNP back into power by 1989. Is this a case of deja vu? Time will tell.

Unfortunately, death cheated this nation of the opportunity to see which direction Michael Manley would have eventually taken if he had had more time at the wicket. After all, he had discarded the Kariba and donned jacket and tie, Wall Street style, and had married a woman of high colour, a move that his upper St Andrew detractors (aka big business interests) would have welcomed with much delight after his frowned-upon dalliance with the black Beverly Manley.

Then there was the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac) debacle, and again there was not much love remaining between the PNP and big business interests.

Perhaps P J Patterson may just be right, given his acute political intuitiveness. With the campaign finance train seemingly derailed or going nowhere, how both parties relate to big business interests, in many ways, will decide the fate of this country. In this regard, given the PNP’s ambivalence and the JLP’s seemingly don’t care attitude, it may well take a Mark Golding to bridge the gap.

If the PNP foolishly chooses to alienate big business interests instead of wooing them on a platform of “we are all in this thing together and we have to work it out”, then it will have no other alternative but to take to the streets, and in such a scenario an election win may well turn out to be a pyrrhic victory.

Lloyd B Smith has been involved full-time in Jamaican media for the past 45 years. He has also served as a Member of Parliament and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. He hails from western Jamaica where he is popularly known as the Governor. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or lbsmith4@gmail.com.