EDITORIAL - Mike Henry in the guise of renewal

IT IS not often that someone like Delano Seiveright, the leader of the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) youth arm, Generation 2000 (G2K), is likely to be cited with favour in these columns.

He is too raw a politician, who has largely scuppered a once-fine organisation of policy debate and ideas for a blunt, partisan tool. But a recent article by Mr Seiveright is worth the wade and notice.

Mr Seiveright talked about transformational leadership in politics and the capacities of Generation X (persons born between 1961 and 1981) and the need "for older political leaders", who had largely made a hash of things, to "sooner rather than later honourably leave the front rows of the political field and allow Generation X to continue the game-changing initiatives".

Added Mr Seiveright: "There is no doubt that this and younger generations have an endless supply of ideas, energy, and pragmatism. Even more so, many of them are free of the heavy weight of baggage that many of our respected elders carry around."

We had assumed that G2K believed in these ideas and that, however messily handled, something of transformational was under way in the JLP.

There was, for instance, Agriculture Minister Dr Christopher Tufton's defeat of Dr Horace Chang for the chairmanship of the JLP's western regional organisation, thereby becoming a deputy leader of the national party.

There may be disaffection with, and question marks over, the attitude, actions, behaviour and personality of Mr Daryl Vaz, who is likely to be elected the JLP's general secretary, but he falls within Generation X. Moreover, Mr Vaz has a reputation for energy and for getting things done. Others on this generational flank seem set to win other posts in the party.

At odds with this declared process of renewal is the seemingly foregone elevation of the septuagenarian, Mr Mike Henry, the construction and transport minister, to the chairmanship of the party on which the Central Executive will vote this weekend.

Mr Henry has no competitors for the post. So, at 75, he will succeed Dr Ken Baugh, the foreign minister, who is six years Mr Henry's junior.

Hoping to ease strains

It is noteworthy that the urbane Dr Baugh decided against seeking re-election, hoping to ease strains in the party by opening the path to succession. Dr Baugh probably thought he was making way for Generation X, or a near generation, rather than Mike Henry.

Significantly, though, Mr Henry - in whom Mr Seiveright, having retreated from his invocations of the likes of America's Barack Obama and Britain's David Cameron, sees renewal - has the support of of G2K.

Of course, Mr Henry is not without skills. He is reputed to be a tough, unyielding infighter, well endowed in the art of 'old time' politics. It was he who recently told Peter Bunting that he if couldn't stand the heat of the political fire, in the alleged partisan approach to infrastructure rehabilitation, then he should get out of the kitchen.

And as the construction minister, it is Mr Henry who, by and large, controls the $35-billion infrastructure rehabilitation fund to be spent for the next few years.

That, we are sure, can purchase a lot of renewal - of the old style. Is this the renewal that Mr Seiveright wishes to sell to Generation X and younger?

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