JLP Did A Poor Job Of Maximizing Bustamante’s Contribution : PNP Maxed Out Manley’s…

Even as large crowds are not nec­es­sar­i­ly a good indi­ca­tor of elec­tion results in Jamaica, the Jamaica labor par­ty should use the mas­sive PNP crowd in Half-Way-Tree Sunday as a moti­va­tion to get out the Vote.
The Labor Party wins when Jamaicans are fed up with the old­er polit­i­cal par­ty. Unfortunately for the Labor par­ty a trend has emerged in the way it is treated.
When things gets real­ly real­ly bad and the vot­ers can­not bear any more they vote the Labor par­ty in to fix the problems.
Kinda like the Americans flir­ta­tious rela­tion­ship with it’s old­er Republican Party, when they screw up they vote the Democrats in to fix things. Once things are back to nor­mal they resume the unhealthy rela­tion­ship with the Republicans.
As soon as Jamaicans bel­lies are filled and they are com­fort­able they wan­der off once again into the dan­ger­ous dal­liance with the PNP.
Ultimately the PNP has fig­ured out how to keep Jamaican vot­ers com­ing back to the par­ty by feed­ing them sweet cot­ton can­dy of lies promis­es and false promis­es. Just a taste of sweet which nev­er fills them up, they are kept in per­pet­u­al hope each elec­tion cycle, the mir­a­cle is just around the next cor­ner. Like the pied piper of Hamlin they fol­low like Rats and are led off the cliff into an ocean of despair and disappointment.
It’s almost like the Biblical sto­ry of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Despite hav­ing every­thing at their fin­ger­tips, despite the plen­ty, Eve wan­dered off into a illic­it and mon­u­men­tal­ly con­se­quen­tial affair with the Devil

In com­ing to terms with the love affair Jamaicans have with the People’s National Party it’s impor­tant to under­stand that the (PNP) is the old­er of the two major polit­i­cal parties.
It is also impor­tant to rec­og­nize the sig­nif­i­cance Jamaicans place on the con­cept of a sup­posed Independent Jamaica , even though sub­stan­tive­ly Jamaica remain a depen­dent nation teth­ered to Britain and major lender agen­cies in crit­i­cal ways.
Of no less­er sig­nif­i­cance is the mythol­o­gy sur­round­ing Norman Manley’s con­tri­bu­tion to the Island’s Independence as opposed to his Cousin Alexander Bustamante.

It is impor­tant that for his­tor­i­cal con­text, when we con­sid­er the empha­sis which cer­tain seg­ments of the Jamaican pop­u­la­tion places on Manley’s cre­ation of the (PNP) , we also remem­ber that Alexander Bustamante was instru­men­tal in the cre­ation of the PNP and was a found­ing member.
Alexander Bustamante broke away from the PNP in 1939 when he decid­ed that the par­ty’s demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ist rhetoric was too rad­i­cal. He went on to form the Jamaica Labor Party a mod­er­ate cen­trist party.
After Britian decid­ed to drop Jamaica and oth­er for­mer colonies after World War Two, Norman Manley became Premier or Chief Minister in 1955.
However after the elec­tions of 1962 the Jamaica labor Party defeat­ed the People’s National Party. Alexander Bustamante ascend­ed to the Premiership of the Island.
Later that year the British Parliament passed the Jamaica Independence Act of 1962.
Alexander Bustamante became the very first Prime Minister of the new­ly Independent Jamaica.

Jamaicans have a cer­tain loy­al­ty to those they view as cru­cial to their sense of self deter­mi­na­tion . The (PNP) has done a great job of bur­nish­ing the resume’ of it’s past lead­ers and their accom­plish­ments , in some cas­es over-hyp­ing them, the JLP has done a hor­ri­ble job telling it’s story.
It was shock­ing to see the Island’s Prime Minister on a polit­i­cal stage on Sunday January 31^st refer­ring to Norman Manley as the father of the Nation with­out a men­tion of Bustamante.
The Jamaica Labor Party under Edward Seaga , Bruce Golding and Andrew Holness failed dis­mal­ly, despite extend­ed peri­ods in politic obliv­ion to build sup­port for the par­ty based on the tri­umphs and accom­plish­ments of its’ for­mer lead­ers, like Bustamante, Dr, Herbert Eldemire , Hugh Shearer, Robert Lightbourne and others.
It’s intel­lec­tu­al lazi­ness to assume that the ground-swell of sup­port the PNP enjoys is based on the expec­ta­tion of free­bies only.
It’s impor­tant to under­stand the lens through which PNP sup­port­ers see Norman and Michael Manley.
The Jamaica Labor Party failed to edu­cate the Island’s peo­ple about it’s champions.
In fact the JLP has allowed the lie that the par­ty is a rich man’s par­ty to stick and set­tle in.

It was Alexander Bustamante who spent almost two years locked up in prison for stand­ing up for work­ers rights.
It was Bustamante who fought tooth and nail to keep Jamaica out of the West Indies Federation which lumped ten for­mer British Colonies into a sin­gle enti­ty bear­ing the afore­men­tioned name. Norman Manley led the Island into the Federation which was vast­ly unpop­u­lar with most Jamaicans.
Norman Manley was lat­er forced as Premier to hold a ref­er­en­dum on the issue which saw Jamaica opt­ing out of the Federation which lat­er col­lapsed after Trinidad and Tobago also opt­ed out.
So much for father of the Nation !
Where would Jamaica be were it not for the vision­ary ideas of Bustamante?
For the Revisionist Historians who like to talk about what Manley means to Jamaica , let it be known Norman Manley sold Jamaica ‘s sov­er­eign­ty to the West Indies Federation .
Bustamante gave Jamaica Nationhood.

Let s begin the process of mobi­liz­ing Laborites into Teams. Identifying team-lead­ers, moti­vate them , give them areas of responsibility.
Equip each team with appro­pri­ate trans­porta­tion, let them report into a cen­tral hub/​series of hubs with­in each constituency.
Each hub must com­mu­ni­cate on the progress being made in get­ting vot­ers out to the polls and get­ting them back home again.
Whenever prob­lems occur if these team lead­ers can­not han­dle the prob­lem a high­er tiered lead­er­ship group must jump into action.
Failure is not an option.
Jamaica is a small coun­try , each parish , each region must dial into this concept .
Failing this kind of orga­niz­ing the JLP must get com­fort­able for anoth­er long peri­od of polit­i­cal opposition.