Critical to Andrew Holness’s survival as leader of Jamaica’s Opposition Jamaica Labor Party, is the fact that twenty of the JLP’s 21 MPs took part in the poll at the party’s Belmont Road headquarters in Kingston, with Holness being the only one without a vote. The result of the ballots showed that he had the support of approximately two-thirds of the MPs. Thirteen of the MPs supported him remaining as their leader, while seven were opposed.
It is now time for the labor party to unite and develop strategy on the best way forward for our country.
Those opposed to his leadership must now shut up sit down or find another party.
The labor party as an entity have been through these growing pains before.
So too have the People’s National Party.
It wasn’t too long ago the nation was engrossed with the Spectacle of the Peter Phillips challenge to Portia Simpson Miller’s leadership of that Party.
Unfortunately for Peter Phillips, Portia the populist had the backing of the party’s old guard from the Michael Manley/Percival Patterson wing
What dissenters and detractors of Andrew Holness’s leadership must now look at, is the rapid dispatch with which the PNP fused around the leadership of Portia and once again became one party.
One party which effectively won a decisive victory.
As I wrote recently petty jealousies and ego has been the JLP’s achilles heel, this has severely affected the party’s ability to win elections.
The time for that to end is now.
Those withing the party who are consumed with their own agenda must now submit to his leadership or go join the PNP. It isn’t as if some haven’t already done so.
Of note is the inconvenient little fact that Audley Shaw was absent from the Gospel event sponsored by Evrald Warmington in Old Harbor St Catherine.
It may very well be that there were extenuating circumstances which made it impossible for him to attend.
However the optics were terrible, particularly at a time when Holness’s leadership was in question.
It is time now for Audley Shaw and others to be supportive of the leader of the party or step aside.
The party is bigger than any one person or group of people.
It is time for the party of Bustamante, Donald Sangster, and Hugh Lawson Shearer and Robert Lightbourne to step to the fore and offer leadership to our people.
Leadership which will educate our young people.
Take care of those who cannot take care of themselves.
Put our country on a path to economic sustainability.
Develop strategies which will once again make the private sector the engine of growth as opposed to borrowing and massive taxation.
Develop and maintain our infrastructure with a view to reducing and eliminating urban sprawl.
Stop the wholesale divestment of our country’s vital assets.
Putting adequate laws in place which will reduce lawlessness,making our country once again a place where people want to visit , invest in and a place where Jamaicans can be happy to call home.
These are some of the pressing needs of our small nation.
The labor party will not fix everything in one fell-swoop but it will indicate to the world that Jamaica is once again open for business.