Portia For Tenured Leadership Of The PNP.….

On September 3^rd 2007 Portia Simpson Miller was defeated in general elections held in Jamaica . She lost to Orette Bruce Golding of the Jamaica Labor Party , It was a slim victory but one the (JLP) relished after been in the political wilderness for ¹⁴¹⁄₂ years under the leadership of Edward Seaga, whom the people decided they did not want to elect to the highest office again.

However by Thursday December 29^th 2011 Portia and the PNP deliv­ered a crush­ing 41 – 22-seat shel­lack­ing to the Labor Party. Once again send­ing the JLP into polit­i­cal hibernation.
According to an autop­sy report com­mis­sioned by the JLP leader Andrew Holness after the loss, the JLP lost because among oth­er things , it was unpre­pared and most of all, it was vot­ed out because of the Christopher (duddus)Coke mat­ter which Bruce Golding mis­han­dled mightily.
The Party could have saved that mon­ey any per­son on the cor­ner could have told them that.
Portia Simpson Miller was back in Jamaica House!

Holness a smart young leader took his shel­lack­ing and went on a mis­sion to lis­ten to the peo­ple, hear their griev­ances and for­mu­late pol­i­cy posi­tions for his party.
Albeit that we would believe that the esteemed Leader of the JLP would lis­ten to advice from us, but he did exact­ly what we said was need­ed in light of the par­ty’s sig­nif­i­cant loss.
During my life­time I have seen the incred­i­ble smarts of the Jamaican peo­ple up close , even when they lack the basic abil­i­ty to read or write, they are gen­er­al­ly nobody’s fool.
Politicians dis­re­spect them to their detri­ment and peril.

Disrespectful and arro­gant are two of the most obvi­ous char­ac­ter­is­tics which may read­i­ly be found in our nation’s polit­i­cal lead­ers . So it was no sur­prise that Portia Simpson Miller would mis­read the resolve and intent of the vot­ers when they sent her back to Jamaica House on my birth­day December 29^th 2011.
Having been giv­en more time in Jamaica House than their oppo­nent the JLP since 1962 ‚the PNP devel­oped a sense of enti­tle­ment and even con­tempt for the electorate.
The par­ty start­ed believ­ing it’s own sil­ly rhetoric “jume­ka a pnp kun­try”

The peo­ple’s repu­di­a­tion of the JLP in 2011 I thought was exact­ly cor­rect. As some­one who believes the JLP is the less­er of two evils I want­ed that par­ty to win but I felt the peo­ple act­ed appro­pri­ate­ly when they sent the par­ty packing.
I thought that Andrew Holness and the par­ty should go out and earn the trust of the peo­ple. I thought it would be good for the par­ty to rebuild rather than pro­ceed from the hand-off Golding had done to Holness.
The love and trust of the Jamaican peo­ple was out there to be had, the par­ty and it’s lead­er­ship would have to earn it, and right­ly so.

The fact that the PNP found itself back in pow­er after December 29^th 2011 was a sur­prise to many, but none more so than the PNP itself, which was still jad­ed and out of ideas after been in office for an unprece­dent­ed unbro­ken 14 ¹⁄₂ years.
Not rec­og­niz­ing that it’s re-elec­tion had noth­ing to do with it’s abil­i­ty to deliv­er qual­i­ty ser­vices, but was a smack-down of an errant JLP, the PNP unwit­ting­ly believed it had a man­date to rule, not serve.

Portia took on the mantra of a Monarch.
In addi­tion to been gross­ly incom­pe­tent as a leader she decid­ed she would not answer any ques­tions from the press.
I may be wrong in char­ac­ter­iz­ing her actions as monar­chis­tic as a mat­ter of fact, the British Royal fam­i­ly have made them­selves quite avail­able to the media in recent years, par­tic­u­lar­ly after Diana Spencer mar­ried into that fam­i­ly and enlight­ened them somewhat.
Queen Elizabeth even offered to pay tax­es years ago after the British pub­lic became agi­tat­ed with the amount of tax­pay­ers funds being chan­neled into main­tain­ing the monarchy.
The Queen, an astute sur­vivor quick­ly decid­ed her roy­al house­hold would pay taxes.
That bril­liant move qui­et­ed the dis­sent and the monar­chy sur­vived anoth­er day.
Oh for the pow­er of adaptability.

Not a quick study Portia for her part told the media she would not be talk­ing her­self out of office, an obvi­ous dig at her pre­de­ces­sor Bruce Golding who had a week­ly radio radio call in pro­gram from Jamaica house, in which peo­ple were allowed to call in and talk issues with the Prime Minister.
That was a ground break­ing ini­tia­tive , thanks to Golding’s for­ward think­ing on that issue.
Facing a litany of unre­solved cor­rup­tion scan­dals, some from it’s pre­vi­ous tenure in office, oth­ers new , Mrs Simpson Miller either refused to speak to the press, or told them to go ask the PNP.

Facing anoth­er nation­al elec­tion in 2016 Mr’s Miller com­mit­ted the car­di­nal sin, she attached con­di­tions before she would attend­ed tele­vised debates with the JLP’s Andrew Holness.
She stu­pid­ly demand­ed that Holness pub­licly apol­o­gize for say­ing she was a con-artiste , she even threat­ened legal action against the the oppo­si­tion leader nev­er mind that she was the per­son who referred to his eco­nom­ic plan as a con plan.
The fact of the mat­ter was that Miller and her par­ty had no answers to the nations prob­lems, and they were many. So they arro­gant­ly expect­ed to dis­re­spect the vot­ers by obfus­cat­ing and dodg­ing under flim­sy con­coct­ed guises.
Essentially say­ing I’m not account­able, I don’t have to tell you what my plans are , just go out and give us anoth­er five year term.
What arrogance ?
As the head of the PNP ‚Portia Simpson Miller placed her­self above the rule of law , above account­abil­i­ty, above answer­ing to anyone.
If there is a process where you are required to debate your oppo­nent you shut up and turn up for the debate.
A polit­i­cal debate is a job interview>
You refuse to show up you don’t get hired.
Portia did not receive that memo…Peter Phillips did not mind either he sim­ply kept stok­ing the fire about the size of Andrew Holness’ house. Despite know­ing full well it was polit­i­cal sui­cide. He want­ed Simpson Miller to con­tin­ue mak­ing an ass of her­self so he could step out of her shadow.
In fact, how could Peter Phillips not har­bor some grudge against Portia? He cer­tain­ly did not chal­lenge her for lead­er­ship of the par­ty because he thought she was bet­ter able to lead the par­ty than he was.
Imagine he a PhD hav­ing to to live in the shad­ow of this.… this… this.……oh you know what I mean.

Those who dis­re­spect the vot­ers gen­er­al­ly get a sense of the peo­ples’s resolve soon­er or later.
For Simpson Miller it was sooner .
On February 25^th 2016 the vot­ers sent her and her par­ty packing .
The JLP did not sweep the elec­tions as the PNP had done the pre­vi­ous cycle, but win­ning 11 seats with­out los­ing a sin­gle seat it held, was pret­ty remarkable.
To add to their tone-deaf arro­gance Simpson Miller and the People’s National refused to under­stand the will of the peo­ple. They went on to dis­cred­it the elec­toral out­come argu­ing that it was on account of promis­es of tax-cuts Holness made pri­or to the elections.
Well what do you know?
What a nov­el con­cept, the Jamaican peo­ple actu­al­ly vot­ing for a par­ty which offered to make them keep some more of their hard earned mon­ey , as against a litany of cor­rup­tion scan­dals and tax hikes.

Listen to the Leader of the Opposition here and form your own opinions.

The par­ty then went ahead and reaf­firmed Portia Simpson Miller as its leader , demon­strat­ing that it did not give a rat’s ass about what the vot­ers were say­ing about Miller’s lead­er­ship , or ;lack thereof.
Being who she is, she went onto a stage in the St Ann con­stituen­cy of Member of Parliament Lisa Hanna and threat­ened vio­lence against her own sup­port­ers in the parish who voiced their dis­ap­proval of some of the can­di­dates the par­ty was foist­ing on them.
The Jamaican peo­ple are not stand­ing for that kind of dis­re­spect from politi­cians any­more, again Portia mis­read her own strengths.
After a while peo­ple are going to be able to see bull­shit for what it is.
The American elec­torate elect­ed a man who open­ly dis­re­spect­ed every­one he could . He refused to release his tax returns so the pub­lic could make informed deci­sions about his suit­abil­i­ty for the presidency.
Not so in Jamaica the peo­ple made it clear that until the PNP learn respect and humil­i­ty they will be on the out­side look­ing in.
On Monday November 28^th vot­ers across the Island sent the PNP and Portia Simpson Miller anoth­er strong mes­sage that they will not stand for any threats or acts of intimidation .
They deliv­ered anoth­er shellacking .

My hunch tells me lead­ers like Paul Burke and oth­ers will still find rea­son to dis­cred­it the out­come of the elec­tions, blam­ing every­one but themselves.
That works for Holness and the Jamaican peo­ple quite well.
People are tired of the vira­go style gar­ri­son pol­i­tics which has char­ac­ter­ized our pop cul­ture, they want change. In the age of infor­ma­tion peo­ple are look­ing in real time at what oth­er peo­ple in oth­er coun­tries are doing, how they are progressing.
They are not going to con­tin­ue to allow the regres­sive style pol­i­tics which Simpson Miller represents.
Whether she goes home is up to her and her party.
The gov­ern­ing JLP must find ways to cap­i­tal­ize on the obsti­na­cy of this shell of a par­ty by deliv­er­ing qual­i­ty respect­ful ser­vice to the peo­ple, mak­ing Jamaica all she was des­tined to be.