PNP’s Rapacious Thirst For Power An Embarrassing Spectacle…

The People National Party has always oper­at­ed like a cult and still does today. Those old enough to remem­ber will recall that they had the audac­i­ty to argue that Jamaica was a PNP country.
The old par­ty of the 70s still exists, albeit under a new coat of orange paint. The Party con­tin­ues to dis­sem­i­nate lies and obfus­ca­tion as facts to fool the very peo­ple it cares about: peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing pover­ty. They claim to love the poor, and it shows because they lie to them even when the truth is in the open. 
Take, for instance, the local gov­ern­ment elec­tions held on Monday; even as the final count was still under­way by the Electoral Office of Jamaica EOJ, Massa Mark Golding was busy telling the crowd of PNP sup­port­ers gath­ered at their Head Quarters that the PNP had won the election.
This is a kind of déjà vu for me because it is eeri­ly rem­i­nis­cent of Donald Trump claim­ing he won an elec­tion he lost and one that was­n’t even close at that.
“We can go for­ward with con­fi­dence that we have pulled off a great vic­to­ry here today. The peo­ple have spo­ken. The PNP is alive and well,”. “We are ded­i­cat­ing “this vic­to­ry” to for­mer prime min­is­ter and retired PNP President Portia Simpson Miller.”
Okay, haha, “A look like a los­er to yu?” Alright, I’ll stop. 
Why would Massa Mark tell his sup­port­ers that they had won the elec­tion when it was abun­dant­ly clear that they were actu­al­ly behind in the divi­sions decid­ed, were at best tied in oth­ers, and the process was still underway?
Is this the best Michael Manley’s par­ty has to offer?
I did not agree with many of Michael Manley’s poli­cies, but I damn sure respect­ed the hell out of the man.

Holding elec­tive office has always had one mean­ing for the PNP regard­less of who is at the help of that rab­ble-rous­ing par­ty. That goal is to hold office to see what they can rip and run. Don’t believe me, Massa Mark all but said it last night.
“Comrades, we will con­tin­ue the work. We will con­tin­ue to build our momen­tum”. “We will con­tin­ue what we have been doing; the peo­ple want to see a PNP Government, and the peo­ple want to see I man, Mark Jefferson Golding, in Jamaica House.”
So, the idea for them is not to work to con­tin­ue the great infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment under the JLP. It is not to fur­ther the tremen­dous work that Ed Bartlett has done in tourism or what Tufton is doing in the health ser­vices and Nigel Clarke’s great job with the econ­o­my. His focus is to be sit­ting in Jamaica House, case closed. 
They want to con­trol the nation­al purse strings so that they can dole out scarce resources to the cheap ide­olo­gies who fol­low behind them, look­ing for hand­outs for their votes.
It has always been that way: the least edu­cat­ed, most bois­ter­ous fol­low behind the PNP. Many do not want to say it, but to hell with it, I said it. Most of these peo­ple would not know progress if it hits them in the face. Give them a plate of food, and they will turn back tremen­dous progress for this clown polit­i­cal par­ty called the PNP.

For its part, this is a wake-up call for the Jamaica Labor Party. Yes, some peo­ple have always clam­ored for the PNP because of the promis­es of free­ness. It is dif­fi­cult to extrap­o­late whether they are the ones who some­times switch and vote JLP. There is also the say­ing in our coun­try that the elec­torate does­n’t elect a new gov­ern­ment; it votes out the one they have. Be that as it may, there is enough in the data to show a dis­qui­et with the JLP admin­is­tra­tion that is worth dig­ging into.
Whether the dis­qui­et is about the deliv­ery of reg­u­lar ser­vices like garbage pick­up, bad roads, or the ele­phant in the room, the crime mon­ster, the admin­is­tra­tion must rec­og­nize that the peo­ple are get­ting fed up.
And when the Jamaican elec­torate is fed up, it sum­mar­i­ly dumps the rul­ing par­ty by default, elect­ing the oppo­si­tion by large margins.
We saw it begin­ning in 1980 when Michael Manley was dumped from office,… The JLP was dumped sim­i­lar­ly in 88. Andrew Holness dec­i­mat­ed Portia in the lat­est iter­a­tion of that prac­tice in 2020…
The JLP admin­is­tra­tion has been in office for sev­en con­sec­u­tive years. It must under­stand that its pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty is the secu­ri­ty of the Jamaican People. Yet despite that tremen­dous respon­si­bil­i­ty, the Holness-led JLP wast­ed years run­ning down ZOSO and SOE Rabbit holes that led to nowhere because, as we all know, Rabbits do not have one way in and one way out.
The prime min­is­ter demon­strat­ed scant regard for the police depart­ment by plac­ing for­mer sol­dier Antony Anderson over the police as he had done with oth­er agen­cies. The prime min­is­ter fol­lowed up by telling the nation that Anderson was mod­ern­iz­ing the JCF, a slap in the face of peo­ple’s intel­li­gence as if mod­ern­iz­ing the force had to be done at the expense of crime reduc­tion. As mur­ders esca­lat­ed and peo­ple grew more and more fear­ful, his National Security Minister Horace Chang remarked that, ‘we must give Tony a chance’.
What utter rub­bish. No oth­er Police Commissioner who came up through the ranks was giv­en that much grace or lever­age, not to men­tion the salary and perks. Worse yet, the Prime Minister refus­es to lis­ten to law enforce­ment pro­fes­sion­als, past and present, on how to tack­le crime, and if he’s not care­ful, he’ll have a long time to con­tem­plate the fol­ly of his ways.
Some peo­ple may be stu­pid, but not every­one is. The JLP admin­is­tra­tion under Andrew Holness has done tremen­dous work for Jamaica, and it should be com­mend­ed for the progress made after the ²²¹⁄₂ years débâ­cle of PNP gov­er­nance that will con­tin­ue to be a stain on Jamaica, rivaled only by the dan­ger­ous dal­liances of the 70s.
This gov­ern­ment will be judged on crime regard­less of what the Prime Minister or oth­ers like Ed Bartlett, Nigel Clarke, Chris Tufton, and oth­ers do. If peo­ple are afraid, they will look for safe­ty else­where, even if it means being worse off.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.