Andrew Holness Better Roll Up His Sleeves And Get To Work Now:

The Jamaica Labor Party has been in polit­i­cal obliv­ion for decades, first under Seaga until he got the mes­sage that hav­ing a cohe­sive eco­nom­ic plan for Jamaica was not going to win him anoth­er go at the Tiller and he gave up. Seaga was no finan­cial wiz­ard, nei­ther was he a Saint by a long shot as it relates to gar­ri­son pol­i­tics. For Jamaicans opposed to the insid­i­ous cor­ro­sive nature of People’s National Party Politics, Seaga was a tol­er­a­ble counter-bal­ance. The gen­er­al elec­tions of 1980 saw Edward Seaga swept to pow­er on a 51 to 9 seat advan­tage over Michael Manley. Many believed Manley actu­al­ly lost his seat but was allowed to keep it by virtue of Seaga’s largess. Whether true or not, Manley was a vocif­er­ous oppo­si­tion leader, agi­tat­ing against every­thing. Seaga called snap elec­tions in 1983 , just 3 years after win­ning the largest man­date ever in Jamaica’s his­to­ry. Manley and the People’s National Party did not con­test the elec­tions. Manley knew the PNP would have lost that elec­tion, he also knew he was out of ideas. Manley chose instead to label the new­ly elect­ed JLP Administration ille­git­i­mate, (Bogus Government) in com­mon Jamaica vernacular.

Michael Manley 

Michael Manley and the PNP was unan­i­mous­ly returned to pow­er in 1989 to con­tin­ue the wreck­ing job it start­ed in 1972 . Today Revisionist his­to­ri­ans are busy san­i­tiz­ing Michael Manley’s record of accom­plish­ment , vir­tu­al­ly can­on­iz­ing and mak­ing him a Saint or the sec­ond com­ing of Jesus Christ for Jamaica’s poor and dis­pos­sessed. Ask the peo­ple who were in the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union about Michael Manley’s gang­ster tac­tics to con­trol bar­gain­ing rights for the National Workers Union a PNP affil­i­ate. Ask People like Pearnel Charles and vir­tu­al­ly all the JLP polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion, which was locked up at the Army Barracks Up Park Camp under trumped-up alle­ga­tions of sedi­tious activ­i­ties by Michael Manley. Look at the ram­pant pro­lif­er­a­tion of zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions (gar­risons) which sprang up under Michael Manley and his side-kick Anthony Spaulding. Of course the pro­lif­er­a­tion of the Garrisons looked great to the casu­al onlook­er, what’s not to like , poor peo­ple are being housed, right? Only prob­lem was that those hous­es which were stacked with par­ty sup­port­ers were being paid for by the coun­try’s mid­dle class. Teachers, doc­tors, firemen,Police offi­cers , nurs­es bore the brunt of the tax­a­tion to pay for those hous­ing units occu­pied by par­ty supporters.

Percival James Patterson

Today Michael Manley is some­thing of a folk-hero, of course the nation’s econ­o­my is in the toi­let because of his Socialist Policies put in place in the 70’s and con­tin­ued by Percival Patterson and Portia Simpson Miller. There are report­ed­ly 11 PNP Garrisons to every 1 JLP gar­ri­son. I am not sure about that fig­ure as the only JLP Garrison of Tivoli Gardens was dis­man­tled in 2010. Somehow the trio of Manley Patterson and Miller nev­er quite under­stood that when Government pro­vides a safe envi­ron­ment free from bureau­crat­ic red-tape, cor­rup­tion, crony­ism, and nepo­tism, and pay-offs the entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it of the peo­ple soars. Instead they reduced our coun­try to a nation of beg­gars. Many of whom believe Government holds the keys to their sal­va­tion. Despite this trag­ic mal­a­dy the Manley name is plas­tered all over Jamaica, streets, build­ings , air­port, muse­ums and yes the cur­ren­cy, bears the not so sub­tle indoc­tri­na­tion cour­tesy of the PNP.

Portia Lucretia Simpson Miller

Neither Michael Manley , Percival Patterson , nor Portia Simpson Miller won elec­tions because they had bet­ter ideas on how to grow Jamaica’s econ­o­my. They did not win because they had a plan to low­er tax­es, improve edu­ca­tion, low­er crime and cor­rup­tion, elim­i­nat­ing gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion and bureau­cra­cy, and embark­ing on mas­sive infra­struc­tur­al devel­op­ment. They read the elec­torate well, they real­ized that toss­ing a few dol­lars at the right time to the right group of peo­ple will have them hold­ing state pow­er. This strat­e­gy has worked per­fect­ly . Over the last 4 decades they have held elect­ed office for 28 years. The vast major­i­ty of the vot­ing pub­lic are quite con­tent to be thrown a cou­ple of crash pro­gram bucks, and be allowed to break the laws to sup­ple­ment those bor­rowed dol­lars. A trag­ic indict­ment on our nation , but one which suits the rul­ing People’s National Party. So don’t ask the Prime Minister about growth poli­cies and her Administration’s plan to reduce pover­ty, much less elim­i­nat­ing the wan­ton killings which are forc­ing peo­ple to flee. They don’t want to be both­ered with Governing, win­ning elec­tions is what they know how to do and they do it well. That is the rea­son Portia feels she don’t have to be both­ered with answer­ing to any­one, least of all the peas­ants who are going to vote for her and her par­ty regardless.

Andrew Holness 

When Andrew Holness was hand­ed the JLP , I offered my unso­licit­ed advice on what he need­ed to do if he was to be suc­cess­ful.https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​2​196. Holness called the elec­tions and hand­ed the reins of Government to Miller and the PNP. Whether it was a good or bad deci­sion to call elec­tions at that time may nev­er be known, but it gave Holness a chance to rebuild and make the Party a focused par­ty. I thought it would have been the right thing to do to solid­i­fy or shore up his sup­port, which would put him in a bet­ter posi­tion to take on the PNP. He did not embark on rebuild­ing or re-brand­ing which forced a chal­lenge from Audley Shaw. Many argued it was bad for Shaw to chal­lenge. I thought it was a good idea, both for the lead­er­ship of Holness and for the par­ty to be seen as demo­c­ra­t­ic going for­ward. I also thought that if Holness solid­i­fied the par­ty around his ideas a chal­lenge would have been avert­ed . https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​5​615.

Holness sur­vived the chal­lenge from Audley Shaw but not get­ting his hands and feet dirty will not return the JLP to Jamaica House. Simply put, the Jamaican vot­ers are not going to elect the JLP to gov­ern­ment sim­ply because the PNP screwed up and con­tin­ue to screw up. It took mas­sive out-maneu­ver­ing for Bruce Golding to eak out a win, despite 18 ¹⁄₂ years of colos­sal foul-ups by the PNP . Andrew Holness and the JLP would be well advised to roll up their sleeves now and seri­ous­ly get to work. The Jamaican elec­torate will not sim­ply hand them the keys to Jamaica House, They will have to take it.