Portia For Tenured Leadership Of The PNP.….

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On September 3rd 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 1412 years under the leadership of Edward Seaga, whom the people decided they did not want to elect to the highest office again.

Andrew Holness Leader opposition JLP
Andrew Holness
Leader oppo­si­tion JLP

However by Thursday December 29th 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 29th 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 29th 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 12 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.

Simposn Miller
Simpson Miller

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 25th 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.

YouTube player

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 28th 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.

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