Preempting The PNP’s Post-mortem.…

The post election post-mortem has begun in earnest after the shocking loss of the People’s National Party on February 25^th 2016.
Please allow me to qualify my statement here, shocking for PNP supporters and others who have a sense that Jamaica belong to the PNP, not the Jamaican people.
Without the benefit of credible non-deceptive polls and not being on the ground in Jamaica I ventured into suggesting that the PNP would lose the election based on a series of mis-steps the Administration and Party took, not the least of which is it’s arrogance in not participating in debates and Mrs Simpson Miller’s refusal to speak to the press.

Paul Burke,the People’s National Party (PNP) gen­er­al sec­re­tary urged Comrades to blame him if they are des­per­ate to point fin­gers at any­one for the par­ty’s loss in the recent gen­er­al elec­tion. “As I accept final respon­si­bil­i­ty for the organ­i­sa­tion of the PNP … if it makes some hap­py, I am also will­ing to take full and com­plete respon­si­bil­i­ty,”.
As he should.
It’s com­mend­able that Burke is will­ing to accept blame but he is not sole­ly to blame for the Party’s loss. There is no sin­gle thing which caused the loss in my opin­ion, it was a drip, drip, drip which may be summed up with one word Arrogance!

Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding com­ment­ed this was the worst run PNP cam­paign he had ever seen.
“I have watched PNP cam­paigns since 1972 when I ran my first elec­tion,” Golding told Observer reporters and edi­tors. “As a polit­i­cal prac­ti­tion­er I always found the PNP to be effec­tive, some­times awe­some in exe­cut­ing a cam­paign. This one was the worst one I’ve ever seen.”

Former prime Minister Golding should know he and his par­ty has seen the effec­tive­ness of the PNP’s mobi­liz­ing machine. He has been on the wrong end of that machin­ery. So any exhuma­tion and poten­tial autop­sy must be geared at fig­ur­ing out how such an effi­cient mobi­liz­ing machine could have got­ten it so wrong?
I will leave the dis­sect­ing of the polit­i­cal corpse to those who fan­cy them­selves experts. I have spent a life­time read­ing and lis­ten­ing to their grandiose prog­nos­ti­ca­tion and grand­stand­ing which has no appeal to any­one out­side their mar­gin­al self cre­at­ed bubble.
Having spent my life close to the streets I trust what I see and hear from the peo­ple over the pen­ny mil­lion­aires above Cross-Roads.
WHAT IS THE JLP’S PATH TO VICTORY ?

Someone com­ment­ed in anoth­er medi­um that the JLP’s vic­to­ry was a mar­gin­al one con­sid­er­ing that thus far there is only a one seat major­i­ty favor­ing the JLP.
These are they who have shaped per­cep­tions and the direc­tion of the debate before the rise of social media and pri­vate blogs. Now more peo­ple get their infor­ma­tion from Blogs and social media plat­forms than they do tra­di­tion­al media sources.
No

longer does the self appoint­ed elites shape the total­i­ty of the nar­ra­tive. The peo­ple decide what the nar­ra­tive should be and this the People’s National Party failed to rec­og­nize. This was the par­ty’s down­fall, the par­ty failed to appre­ci­ate the pow­er of peo­ple to peo­ple inter­ac­tions on per­son­al lev­els via social mediums.

The truth is that both polit­i­cal par­ties have zones of polit­i­cal exclusions,(garrisons). Garrisons were cre­at­ed when the par­ty in pow­er used pub­lic funds to pur­chase large blocks of vot­ers whom they placed into spe­cif­ic con­stituen­cies. These vot­ers become mono­lith­ic vot­ers, or slaves to the par­ty which placed then there.
The PNP has been bet­ter at win­ning elec­tions so it has the larg­er amount of garrisons.
From all indi­ca­tion the PNP has a net 20 seats (gar­risons) which are not in play come elec­tion time, esti­mates for the JLP range some­where between 6 – 9 gar­ri­son constituencies.
It is against that back­ground that the JLP’s win must be con­sid­ered. Moving from 21 seats to a 32 seat plu­ral­i­ty is remark­able in the 63 seat leg­is­la­ture, con­sid­er­ing the fact that the gar­risons are nev­er in play.Winning 11 or poten­tial­ly 12 seats with­out los­ing a sin­gle seat in that cli­mate is a mon­u­men­tal swing of vot­er sentiment.
HOW DOES THE JLP OVERCOME THE DEFICIT

(1) Hopefully the PNP will use this loss as a peri­od of intro­spec­tion and humil­i­ty even as the JLP use it’s turn at the tiller judi­cious­ly and devoid of arrogance.
When Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller insist­ed she would not talk her way out of office in rela­tion­ship to Bruce Golding’s Jamaica House call in radio show, she dis­played a style of arro­gance the peo­ple were not pre­pared to forgive.
(2) When the Prime Minister refused to speak to the coun­try regard­ing the TRAFIGURA débâ­cle telling reporters “go ask the PNP”, it was arro­gance beyond rea­son, she is the PNP.
(3) When the Prime Minister refused to com­plete and release the FINSAC report she indi­cat­ed her and the PNP was above the laws.
(4) When the Prime Minister com­mit­ted tens of mil­lions of tax-pay­ers funds to a nev­er end­ing Tivoli inquiry it was base pol­i­tics and peo­ple took notice.
(5) When the Prime Minister spent a great deal of time on for­eign jun­kets with large con­tin­gent of advis­ers and min­is­ters while peo­ple can­not afford food the peo­ple noticed.

HOLNESS’S HOUSE A PRODUCT OF ENVY MANLEY SOWED…..
(6) When the Prime Minister crit­i­cized Bruce Golding’s cab­i­net then in turn appoint­ed a larg­er one it was hypocrisy.
(7) When the Prime Minister appoint­ed legions of advis­ers and hang­ers on to her office and the offices of the entire exec­u­tive to the tune of hun­dreds of mil­lion while pub­lic sec­tor work­ers suf­fered through wage freeze and infla­tion it was monarchistic.
(8)When the Prime Minister was seen as miss­ing in office that did not bode well for her and her party.
(9) When the entire PNP oppo­si­tion refused to take pay cuts as sug­gest­ed by Bruce Golding , Portia and the PNP’s argu­ments about “lov­ing the poor” was hol­low and Patronizing.

MANLEY’S SON JOSEPH :”HOLNESS HOUSE VULGAR AND OVER-SIZED”: CONFIRMS ENVY….
(10) When the PNP decid­ed to make Andrew Holness’s house the cen­ter­piece of it’s 2016 elec­tion cam­paign the peo­ple real­ized the PNP had noth­ing to offer and it was time for them to go.
(11) When the PNP and Mrs Miller refused to debate the then leader of the Opposition that was the nail in the PNP’s coffin.
Drip..
Drip.…
Drip…
Ended up in a mighty flood…
PNP’S REFUSAL TO PARTICIPATE IN DEBATES A MASSIVE CON-JOB…