Now That The Leadership Question Of The JLP Is Settled , What Is It’s Strategy For Jamaica?

Yesterday I addressed the method the People’s National Party uses to win National elec­tions . The par­ty does so through promis­es and effec­tive­ly using it’s time in office to dole out scarce resources to its sup­port­ers. They stack boards and Government run-busi­ness­es with par­ty faith­ful, and per­haps most crit­i­cal­ly, putting ded­i­cat­ed func­tionar­ies into crit­i­cal areas of civ­il soci­ety where they car­ry out the par­ty’s pro­pa­gan­da campaign.

Andrew Holness

Interestingly though the oppo­si­tion Jamaica Labor Party has spent con­sid­er­able stretch­es of time in obliv­ion, it seem the par­ty still has not grasped the basic rea­son they are get­ting beat time and again. Love them or hate them, the PNP is mas­ter­ful at pro­pa­gan­da. They under­stand the psy­chol­o­gy of the Jamaican elec­torate. Their strat­e­gy, though not one which does much to bring the coun­try to first world sta­tus, is effec­tive in win­ning elec­tions. Tell the peo­ple you love them, keep them poor , then dan­gle some cash in front of them and they will do any­thing for you. Cynical, insult­ing, ret­ro­grade, regres­sive, but effec­tive. The PNP did not get this good at it over one elec­tion cycle. This start­ed the minute the ink was dry on the so-called Independence procla­ma­tion back in 1962. Brick by Brick, Norman Manley, Michael Manley, Percival Patterson and now Simpson Miller, they stuck to the script.

This leads us to the mil­lion dol­lar ques­tion then , “How can the JLP remain so pas­sive in oppo­si­tion, know­ing it can­not match the entrenched infra­struc­ture of the PNP”? Or does it even know? This is the per­fect time for Holness and the Labor Party to start to seri­ous­ly chip away at the chinks in the armor of the PNP. The chink in that armor is not the per­cep­tion that Portia is not the bright­est bulb in the room. She has effec­tive­ly shown that is not a neg­a­tive. In fact, her abil­i­ty to relate to the man on the street on his lev­el, is a tremen­dous asset to her and the rul­ing PNP. As I point­ed out yes­ter­day , Bruce Golding for­mer Prime Minister under­stood how to fight the PNP using the media and the lead­ers own words against her.

You all remem­ber this tirade.“Don’t draw my tongue! And don’t trou­ble this girl! Because I don’t fraid a no man, no gyal, nowhere!”

Head swing­ing from side to side arm flail­ing. Yet Golding’s cam­paign was able to mas­ter­ful­ly har­vest that tirade using it in its own Ad. with a female voice at the end say­ing “But Sista P yu nu ready fi de prime min­is­ter ting”.

Masterful work expos­ing her to the world at her worst and at the same time show­ing the aver­age per­son it was not cool. Nevertheless, well placed polit­i­cal hacks like Carolyn Cooper UWI lec­tur­er valiant­ly attempt­ed to make that crass vira­go out­burst a good thing… It was laugh­able. In her Article titled Drawing sis­ter P’s tongue. http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​1​1​2​2​5​/​c​l​e​i​s​u​r​e​/​c​l​e​i​s​u​r​e​3​.​h​tml

Portia Simpson Miller

The weak­ness lies in her not speak­ing to the media, the gaffes she makes when she does speak, the dete­ri­o­rat­ing eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, the high crime rate cor­rup­tion and the oth­er prob­lems fac­ing the coun­try. The JLP must now embark on a sus­tained media cam­paign which ampli­fies these prob­lems. It must keep ham­mer­ing away at every­thing dai­ly, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly offer­ing palat­able alter­na­tives to the PNP poli­cies. If Holness and the JLP does not adopt an aggres­sive elec­tion­eer­ing strat­e­gy from now, it should resign itself to being in oppo­si­tion again when the next elec­tions are over.