What Is The JLP’s Path To Victory ?

With National Elections only 13 days away it is interesting to know what path the Jamaica Labor Party has to a victory .

On December 29^th 2011 National Elections were held in Jamaica .
Before the night was too far gone it became clear that Simpson Miller and the People’s National Party would form the next Government.
Though Elections were not con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due until September of 2012, Andrew Holness the sit­ting Prime Minister sought his own mandate.
It was a deci­sion which will be in the mind of Holness forever.
The JLP received a one sided drubbing.
In a 44 to 19 shel­lack­ing the jad­ed , tired and out of ideas PNP was returned to pow­er, much to the sur­prise of many includ­ing the PNP itself.
It is still believed that the PNP’s pop­ulist embrace of Gays and Lesbians was the cat­a­lyst which decid­ed the elec­tions in the PNP’s favor.

It begs the ques­tion then “what pop­ulist mes­sage has the JLp which will erase a 25-seat deficit and give the par­ty a one seat majority”?
Jamaican vot­ers are known to be hard-core in their polit­i­cal beliefs, switch­ing their vote only when their per­son­al pantries and cup­boards are emp­ty of food.
This obser­va­tion may not be the most char­i­ta­ble and may even be seen as dis­re­spect­ful of the electorate.
I chal­lenge dis­senters to point to Jamaican vot­ers vot­ing the inter­est of the coun­try over par­ty and their bellies.

The rul­ing PNP has mas­tered the art of pop­ulist pol­i­tics since Jamaica became an Independent Nation[sic].
Michael Manley was a mas­ter of it,Portia and the par­ty acolytes have con­tin­ued that trend.
It was no sur­prise to see Portia Simpson Miller on the Party’s plat­form in Half-Way-Tree Square cham­pi­oning the pos­si­bil­i­ty of gan­ja legalization.
These are huge­ly pop­ulist issues which has tremen­dous res­o­nance for the mass­es many of whom use the weed.
The JLP did not get out front on this issue, so the ques­tion is,“what is the plan to erase the deficit”?

In 72 Hungry Jamaicans scared of Communism boot­ed Manley from office.
By 88 with filled bel­lies and the Cold war over they returned Manley to power.
For an unprece­dent­ed ¹⁴¹⁄₂ years they watched as Patterson and his cronies sold off every­thing. Crime climbed to astro­nom­i­cal lev­els. The econ­o­my lurched from cri­sis to cri­sis and the cur­ren­cy became a worth­less piece of crap.
In that time the very nature of our coun­try changed . Our coun­try was changed from a mod­el in the Caribbean and indeed the world to a pariah.
In many cas­es even CARICOM States do not want Jamaicans in their countries.

Under immense pres­sure, hunger , crime , despair and depri­va­tion Jamaicans turned to Orette Bruce Golding on September 11^th 2007.
The JLP was returned to power.
But just barely.
Despite a col­laps­ing world econ­o­my Audley Shaw and the JLP kept the Jamaican cur­ren­cy sta­ble despite the absence of an IMF deal.
Notwithstanding, the elec­torate returned the PNP to pow­er despite the fact that the par­ty had noth­ing to offer but more despair crime and pover­ty for every­one except it’s elites and gang­land affiliates.

It’s nev­er enough to assume that over­all suf­fer­ing for aver­age Jamaicans will cause them to turn to the oth­er party.
The PNP has an intri­cate net­work of affil­i­ates from the grass-roots to the most sophis­ti­cat­ed areas of the soci­ety ready to go to bat for the PNP .
It is no won­der that Peter Phillips is the sup­posed man of the year.
It is no won­der that the Private sec­tor Organization makes state­ments in sup­port of the Administration.
It is no won­der that for the most part the media hous­es are organs for the party.
Every aspect of nation­al life has been cor­rod­ed with the cor­ro­sive ten­ta­cles of the Governing People’s National Party.

In lieu of the fore­gone it is almost a safe bet to con­clude that unless the Labor Party knows some­thing the rest of us are not privy to, the PNP will be returned to pow­er come February 25^th.
I hope for the future of our coun­try that I am proven wrong but I doubt that very much.
The JLP was nev­er forced to seri­ous­ly defend seats in parish­es like Saint Thomas, St Catherine, Hanover, Clarendon, Portland, Trelawny, and to some degree Manchester.
It is dif­fi­cult to see how the JLP intend to win this elec­tion if it has to defend stren­u­ous­ly in these parishes.
How did these parish­es become com­pet­i­tive parish­es in which the PNP has won and won big?
That’s the issue to consider !
But then again what the hell do I know?