Labor Must Prepare So We May Eliminate That Hated Mantra (Jumeka A Pnp Kuntry)

Horace Chang General sec­re­tary of the Jamaica Labor Party waxed euphor­ic in an Observer Article “Titled ‚JLP on the road to vic­to­ry; will win next elec­tion with com­fort­able mar­gin”. In the Article Dr. Chang laid out an artic­u­late argu­ment detail­ing why the Jamaica Labor Party will win the next gen­er­al Election. Chang pre­dict­ed that Labor will cruise to a com­fort­able vic­to­ry. He also inti­mat­ed that from the Party’s polling and oth­ers to include the Administration’s own polling the gov­ern­ing PNP is poised to lose big in local Government Elections now due.
This assess­ment by Chang is not new , we have heard from very good sources that the PNP’s inter­nal polls have indi­cat­ed they will lose.

While we are on that sub­ject I again use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to call for fixed elec­tion dates. Regardless of who is in pow­er, it should not be left up to politi­cians to decide when to call elections.
With that said there is just so much time left, soon Portia will be forced to call Elections, both local and General and she will have to face the vot­ers. As I have stat­ed in these pages , pass­ing IMF tests can­not be the barom­e­ter we use to mea­sure Government’s per­for­mance . If the Nation is forced to bor­row from the fund or oth­er lenders to pay it’s bills, it’s impor­tant that tar­gets set by lenders, whomev­er they may be , are met.
However the Government has a moral respon­si­bil­i­ty, and an oblig­a­tion to find ways to ease the bur­den of Austerity which gen­er­al­ly accom­pa­nies meet­ing those targets.
Some of those things includes find­ing ways to reduce crime and cor­rup­tion, elim­i­nat­ing bureau­cra­cy, low­er­ing tax­es, so that poten­tial investors may be influ­enced to con­sid­er our coun­try for invest­ment, there­by cre­at­ing more pri­vate sec­tor jobs.

The PNP oper­ates like a well oiled machine when it comes to win­ning elec­tions, as such despite the polls, Chang and the Labor par­ty should not count their chick­ens before they hatch.
If National Elections were called today what would the JLP do dif­fer­ent­ly if they won ?
It is absolute­ly not accept­able to sim­ply wait for the PNP to screw up then win the elec­tions only to con­tin­ue the very same poli­cies and con­tin­ue with the same degree of corruption.
What we need to hear now are sub­stan­tive and detailed pol­i­cy dif­fer­ence that the JLP would admin­is­ter which would have pos­i­tive effects.
It is impor­tant that the Labor Party now lay out exact­ly what it intends to do par­tic­u­lar­ly if it intends to shed the IMF .
Where will it source alter­na­tive funding?
The Government and it’s lack­eys speak about the cri­sis fac­ing the coun­try as if that cri­sis was cre­at­ed by some­one oth­er than themselves.
They speak about debt being 145% of GDP.
They talk about debt ser­vic­ing eat­ing up a huge chunk of the nations bud­get leav­ing pre­cious lit­tle to pay wages and ful­fill oth­er obligations.
What they sur­rep­ti­tious­ly omit is a “mea cul­pa” and a con­fes­sion to the Nation over the hor­ri­ble harm the Party has wrought on the Nation and it’s people.

SEE CHANG’S STORY HERE.JLP on the road to vic­to­ry; will win next elec­tion with com­fort­able margin

A lot of water will flow under the Bridge between now and when­ev­er Queen Portia decides to call National Elections which are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due between 29 December 2016 (the day of the pre­vi­ous elec­tion in 2011) and 16 April 2017.
It per­fect­ly good to be exu­ber­ant about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of win­ning, but that is not enough.
The JLP has devel­oped a knack for self destruc­tion, a fact not lost on Chang.

Quote :(1) We accept that there might still be some lin­ger­ing issues from the lead­er­ship race, but this is not unique to the JLP and is typ­i­cal of all par­ties that cleave to demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples. The team that is coa­lesc­ing for the next General Elections, how­ev­er, is strong, high­ly moti­vat­ed and a good mix of youth and wisdom.
Quote: (2) The leak­ing of par­ty infor­ma­tion by a select few, while trou­bling, serves more as a les­son about the chal­lenges change agents face when enact­ing reform than any­thing else. This is not abnor­mal to organ­i­sa­tions going through sig­nif­i­cant change and forms part of the teething pains that will even­tu­al­ly be soothed. These actors must even­tu­al­ly rec­og­nize that they do not only hurt the tar­gets of their dis­com­fort, but the wider organ­i­sa­tion of which they are a part.
Quote: (3) Because of our his­to­ry, it is under­stand­able that some mem­bers might be jit­tery, but the JLP of 2015 is far dif­fer­ent from how it has been in pre­vi­ous times. This time all the fac­tors are com­ing togeth­er to ensure that the par­ty is ready for vic­to­ry at the polls. Several fac­tors will con­tribute to this victory.

I am not a mem­ber of the par­ty and I am jit­tery for Jamaica’s sake. Clearly there is much more work to be done, not just in con­vinc­ing the pub­lic , Dr. Chang seem to need some con­vinc­ing himself.
Whether or not this Essay from Chang is an attempt at reverse psy­chol­o­gy aimed at his own par­ty and to some degree at mem­bers of the PNP is not important.
What’s impor­tant is that Labor pre­pare, mak­ing itself once again a viable alter­na­tive, elim­i­nat­ing that hat­ed mantra that (Jumeka a pnp kuntry)