Golding's move puts PNP in pickle

Byron Buckley,  Guest Columnist

Rather than causing his party to sink electorally, Prime Minister Bruce Golding is jumping ship, with the Manatt-Coke monkey on his back. He hopes the captain-in-waiting, Andrew Holness - with less political baggage - will be able to steer the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) into safe harbour at the next general election.

Tactically, it is a masterstroke: Mr Golding has pulled the mat from under the feet of the Opposition People's National Party (PNP). It has to wheel and come again.

The PNP, apparently, had been planning its election campaign around Golding and the Manatt-Coke issue. It telegraphed this during its recent annual conference, telling Golding "to pack your bags and go", a refrain from K.D. Knight's remark to Golding at the Manatt-Coke commission of enquiry.

Well, Mr Golding has obliged. He is going. (This is reminiscent of PNP General Secretary Paul Robertson calling on PM Edward Seaga to resign in 1983, and he promptly announced a general election that caught the PNP flat-footed).

The PNP will find it difficult to tar Andrew Holness, Golding's successor, with the Manatt-Coke brush. This is primarily because Golding had hugged up the issue to his detriment. Except for minister with responsibility for information, Daryl Vaz, and Dorothy Lightbourne, then attorney general, Golding virtually owned the Coke extradition matter. During the crisis, a JLP insider at Cabinet rank remarked to me that "the boss [was] too close" to the issue. In hindsight, it now appears advantageous that Golding had insulated most of his Cabinet from being contaminated by the Manatt-Coke affair. So the PNP's emerging strategy of accusing Holness and other members of the Government of collusion on the matter won't fly.

Unfooled populace

Indeed, had the population believed this, they would not so highly regard Holness in a matchup with PNP President Portia Simpson Miller in poll findings last week. The electorate has already discounted the Manatt-Coke factor, as reflected in the nearly 16 percentage decline since last year in the number of persons thinking the country was moving in the wrong direction, according to the latest Gleaner-commissioned Bill Johnson poll.

This is a lesson to both parties that the impending election campaign must focus on bread-and-butter issues, i.e., the state of the economy. The PNP cannot masquerade with the Manatt-Coke enquiry on the campaign trail - that's no longer the flavour of the month. The election campaign has to be about jobs, management of the economy, energy, infrastructure, education, technology and leadership.

The populace, through the recent opinion-poll findings, has also settled the issue of appointing the first post-Independence era politician as a national leader despite the protestations of older folks inside and outside the political sphere. The fact that older, less-communicative folks in the JLP thought themselves viable to replace Golding is hilarious, if not sad. One expects them to stand by the young prime minister's side and offer him sound counsel in a very challenging job. This is evidenced by two-thirds of the public believing that the country is moving in the wrong direction, according to the latest Gleaner-commissioned polls. Furthermore, nearly half the people surveyed disapproved of the Government's management of the economy. So Holness needs all hands on deck to manoeuvre the ship of state in choppy waters.

The selection of the youthful Holness to succeed Golding as JLP leader puts pressure on the PNP to follow suit in the medium term and elevate young persons to leadership positions. This was the criticism when the opposition leader reshuffled her shadow Cabinet earlier this year.

Holness' ascension will also complicate the PNP's leadership dynamics. In addition to the need to portray a managerialist posture by elevating Peter Phillips' role in the party, in the upcoming showdown between herself and Andrew Holness, Mrs Simpson Miller will need to showcase the party's youth phalanx to attract younger voters.

It was the youth voters, tired of 18 years of PNP government, who, to a large extent, voted in the Bruce Golding-led administration.

His decision to make way for a young leader may succeed in preventing the youth vote from sitting out the next election.

Mr Golding must be commended for his political shrewdness to step aside, even before completing one term in office, and ushering in a young successor. He could have chosen, like his predecessor, Mr Edward Seaga, to hang on to power and become the PNP's electoral beating stick during the reign of P.J. Patterson.

But while Mr Golding must be commended for being politically smart in deciding to call it a day, he must be rapped for being politically tone-deaf to the real concerns of the people regarding the Coke extradition matter.

From the outset, Golding framed his objection to the US request for Christopher Coke as a constitutional matter - America violated his rights by using illegally obtained wiretap evidence. I grant Golding that; but this is where resort to the courts would have helped to resolve the situation one way or the other.

Golding, based on his remarks last Sunday night, believes the country sold out Coke. This demonstrates how politically tone-deaf Mr Golding has been. While he framed the Coke extradition as a constitutional issue, the vast majority of Jamaicans here and abroad saw it as a NATIONAL SECURITY matter.

Government in bed with criminals

The United States requested Coke's extradition on allegations of drug trafficking and gunrunning. For decades, Jamaicans have been terrified by the spiralling murder rate. This was highlighted last year by The Gleaner publishing the murder figures daily for a period.

In this context, the people made a link between crime here and allegations against Coke of illegal trafficking in guns. That's a natural reaction - self-preservation and security first. The more Golding sought to defend Coke's constitutional rights, the more pronounced the security issue became, as civil society interpreted this as the Government getting into bed with criminal elements.

Golding is guilty of monkeying around with the Coke extradition issue.

Just imagine the level of demoralisation that must have swept the police and military during Golding's steadfast defence of Coke's rights. Conversely, imagine the encouragement that politically connected elements of the underworld might have felt during this period.

Golding stubbornly refused to ask the courts to adjudicate the matter - a move that would have given him some space.

Instead, the PM chose to actually place (some would say gamble) the viability of his administration - not to mention the country's reputation - on the line in defending what he regarded as Coke's constitutional rights.

I find it very troubling that on the eve of his departure from the political arena - in the face of reports that Coke has admitted to criminal wrongdoings - Mr Golding is still of the view that the ousted Tivoli Gardens strongman was victimised.

If the PM is still that conflicted, he has done the proper thing to throw in the towel. His successor, Andrew Holness, should be warned: no monkey business with thugs, goons and gangsters.

Byron Buckley is an associate editor of The Gleaner. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and byron.buckley@gleanerjm.com.