A Look Behind The Supposed PNP Tsunami .….…..

If ever there was a case for a fixed Election date in Jamaica the spec­ta­cle which played out on the world stage in Half-Way-Tree Square Sunday night was it.
This Medium has been call­ing for a fixed elec­tion date for years , so too has the Jamaica Labor Party which forms the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion on the Island.
I have not researched the rea­son that the Opposition Party sup­port a fixed date for National elec­tions but on a per­son­al note I believe a fixed date pre­vents the Prime Minister of whichev­er par­ty from manip­u­lat­ing the process.
It was despi­ca­ble, the lev­el of crass­ness we saw attached to the process last night it should nev­er be repeat­ed ever again.

Well known Columnist and PNP sym­pa­thiz­er Gordon Robinson final­ly got it right. In his Gleaner Column today titled ” Circus Clowns Come To Half-Way Tree”
Robinson said Quote : ”

As I watched the PM announce the elec­tion date to a sea of orange-clad PNP sup­port­ers, I only felt depres­sion. If ever there was an adver­tise­ment for fixed elec­tion dates, it’s the song-and-dance rou­tine that’s char­ac­terised this six-month elec­tion cam­paign. To have a February elec­tion only because the PNP is at last ahead in the polls exposes:

- an infu­ri­at­ing­ly dis­grace­ful, self-serv­ing, unpa­tri­ot­ic, nar­cis­sis­tic con­tempt for Jamaica; AND

- the anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic, total­i­tar­i­an, unjust nature of the laws that allow this to happen.

The Prime Minister could have called Elections 6 months ago . Now grant­ed she had until ear­ly 2017 to call elec­tions, Miller opt­ed not to call nation­al elec­tions because the poll results were not in her favor. As per the grapevine it is under­stood that the Labor par­ty had a lead of up to six (6) per­cent­age points at the time.
Now I must con­fess if I was in her shoes I would not have called elec­tions either. For the die-hard died-in-the wool Kumreds[sic] who will argue that there is no truth to the fact that she did not call it because of the polls, please explain what was her rea­son for push­ing “local gov­ern­ment elec­tions” back over a year.
Many argue now that the ques­tion­able Don Anderson poll which gives the PNP a four per­cent­age points over it’s rival JLP has buoyed the Prime Minister to seek a new man­date at this time. That may be true, but the bit­ter real­i­ties which are sure to emanate from the upcom­ing bud­get was sure to play into the deci­sion mak­ing process of the Prime Minister.

Large scale lay­offs, price increas­es and more tax­a­tion are sure to fol­low the new budget.
Simpson-Miller does not want that kind of anger in the elec­torate going into an election.
No politi­cian of any “P” should have the pow­er to await favor­able poll results or oth­er fac­tors to deter­mine when National elec­tions are called.
No sin­gu­lar per­son should have that pow­er regard­less of Party label, that pow­er should rest with the people.
Politicians should per­form then face the elec­torate at a time of the elec­torate’s choos­ing, not a time politi­cians choose.

Politicians should serve the peo­ple, not their par­ty’s or per­son­al inter­est. When we allow the gar­ish and vul­gar dis­play of our polit­i­cal process which was on dis­play last night we allow politi­cians to cement the belief we serve them rather than the oth­er way around.
Several months ago I spoke to a fam­i­ly friend regard­ing the state of affairs on the Island, he lives there I don’t . I asked him why it was that there is no social upheaval despite the mas­sive ero­sion in the val­ue of the local cur­ren­cy , the astro­nom­i­cal­ly high crime rate, the ever increas­ing impov­er­ish­ment of the work­ing class, the crum­bling infra­struc­ture, and the mas­sive cor­rup­tion with­in the Administration?
He respond­ed “the coun­try is falling apart but the peo­ple are con­tent” !!!

“THE PEOPLE ARE CONTENT”

How could a sane elec­torate be con­tent I asked ? He shrugged his shoul­ders and shook his head in exas­per­a­tion . Are these peo­ple sim­ply to be dis­missed as Circus Clowns ” accord­ing to Kumred [sic] Gordon Robinson? Or is there some­thing deep­er going on accord­ing to the very same Kumred]sic] Robinson?
“Jamaica was put on elec­tion alert by Peter Phillips in July 2015 and has since been fed a steady diet of putrid, pop­ulist pol­i­tics until, over­stuffed with ran­cid rhetoric, they’re just look­ing for a ready recep­ta­cle in which to regurgitate”.
I am more inclined to believe that peo­ple are fed up because of the con­stant rhetoric and the con­stant wait­ing they would have turned out to watch paint dry.

Will Jamaicans go out on February 25^th to return Portia Simpson Miller and com­pa­ny to Gordon House as the major­i­ty par­ty? That is yet to be seen.
It is in-advis­able that any­one pre­tend to know what a large crowd in Half-Way-Tree square means as far as what par­ty will win the elections.
Both Michael Manley and Edward Seaga would attest to that.
Furthermore mass meet­ings like these are gen­er­al­ly pop­u­lat­ed with peo­ple who are bused in from across the country.
Nevertheless it is impor­tant not to dis­count mas­sive crowds as incon­se­quen­tial to the debate.
If peo­ple are sat­is­fied they may not have a rea­son not to go out and sup­port their party.

Which brings us to the ques­tion of what could poten­tial­ly cre­ate that sup­posed con­tent­ment in the electorate?
If the coun­try is in a bad a shape as every­one say it is … and it is.
Maybe the elec­torate have sim­ply giv­en up on what it expects for Jamaica.
Maybe it has re-adjust­ed its expec­ta­tion of what can be achieved.
Maybe it does­n’t care about the mis­ery index any­more. Maybe the present elec­torate sim­ply does­n’t know any bet­ter. Maybe it has got­ten used to beg­ging for the remit­tance monies it receives from abroad. Maybe it likes where it is between the remit­tance and the 7 days per week par­ty­ing whats not to like?
Come to think about it, the Jamaican elec­torate have nev­er been a sophis­ti­cat­ed one . In 1980 despite par­ty loy­al­ties they turned out and vot­ed their bel­lies. In the biggest elec­tion loss ever, the PNP was kicked out of office in a 51 – 9 drub­bing . Many peo­ple believed Michael Manley lost his seat but was allowed to save face by keep­ing it.

Despite the rhetoric of “jamaica a pnp kun­try’ Kumreds[sic] for­got ide­ol­o­gy and vot­ed their bel­lies, they want­ed food on shop and super­mar­ket shelves.
After the eco­nom­ic advance­ments and the rel­a­tive peace and sta­bil­i­ty of the Seaga years Kumreds[sic] went back to ide­ol­o­gy with filled bel­lies and cloud­ed mem­o­ries they re-elect­ed Michael Manley in 88 and Jamaica’s fate was sealed.
The peo­ple who came of age out of the 70’s era of Manley-ism in Jamaica and the younger gen­er­a­tion swal­lowed hook-line-and-sinker the notion that Government is bene­fac­tor . They nev­er lived under a sys­tem of free mar­ket, as such they look to Government to pro­vide jobs. They expect Government to play sig­nif­i­cant roles in their lives. It is a depen­den­cy syn­drome which trumps Nationalism.
Jamaicans are large­ly Nationalistic when it comes to sports. Nationalism be damned when they are required to set aside par­ty polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions and vote in the inter­est of Country.
That may explain the cult-like loy­al­ty with which PNP sup­port­ers fol­low their par­ty. To them par­ty means food on the table, not pay­ing rental for the house in which they live, not pay­ing for water, not pay­ing for electricity.
It means col­lect­ing salaries for jobs they do not go to. It means rid­ing on a bus with­out pay­ing fare because a pnp time and a pnp kuntry”.
As long as they are able to eat today at the expense of the coun­try’s tomor­row , tomor­row be damned.

Manley’s indoc­tri­na­tion of the pop­u­lace into believ­ing that peo­ple who worked and achieved mate­r­i­al suc­cess were evil Capitalists changed the moral com­pass of our country.
When PNP hacks speak about peo­ple green with envy , they are talk­ing about what Manley’s phi­los­o­phy did for our country.
Eight Years of Seaga and four years of Golding-Holness was nev­er going to be enough to reverse that indoctrination.
A dozen years bro­ken by an unprece­dent­ed 14 ¹⁄₂ years was nev­er going to be enough to re-focus a pop­u­la­tion reared on free­bies and the expec­ta­tion of it.
That may bet­ter explain the sup­posed Tsunami of Kumreds[sic] .
To them there is no oth­er way.