Golding's necessity or virtue?

Mr Bruce Golding has indicated his intention to step down as leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and prime minister of Jamaica. In his speech to the nation last Sunday night, he sought to make a virtue out of what was an obvious necessity. The grand-sounding declaration about stepping aside for the next generation was a mere ruse to avoid certain defeat at the polls.

In May, he was trailing Portia Simpson Miller by as much as 22 points, according to one opinion poll. The current polls have reconfirmed Mrs Simpson Miller's dominance and that the only person who could be a serious contender is Andrew Holness, the prime minister-designate.

Sections of the media have hailed Golding's action as historic and forward-looking. Others have pronounced him as a serial quitter for his propensity to abandon ship at critical moments in history. Leaving the JLP for the National Democratic Movement, which he later forsook when its fortune faded for a return to the despised JLP, is evidence being cited.

Now he is abandoning a government in dire economic straits. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement is virtually dead. Our country, under his leadership, chalked up 13 consecutive quarters of negative growth and no review done for four scheduled quarterly IMF tests. Jamaica has been unable to draw down any money from the IMF for 12 months. Unemployment and poverty have increased significantly, leaving hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans to depend on luck for even a single meal most days. Faced with these serious challenges and certain defeat, Mr Golding has suddenly discovered that there is virtue in passing the baton to the next generation.

In a country where very few people pay attention to history, we are led to believe that youth is the answer. Just five years after Independence, Jamaica had a prime minister, Hugh Shearer, who was 44. Only five years older than Andrew Holness is. The finance minister then was Edward Seaga, at age 37, two years younger than Holness. Their cumulative age was 81 years. There is no combination in the current Cabinet that can come below this total age. Shaw and Holness together are 98 years.

There is no magic in the choice of younger people to lead our nation. We have been there before. Those of us old enough will recall the song by the group, the Ethiopians, titled 'Everything Crash'. That was a succinct summation of the life of the working and poor people in the first decade of Independence. It ended with a landslide victory for the People's National Party (PNP) in 1972.

There was another time when the governance of our country was passed to another group of younger people. It was in 1992. In an article titled 'Economy drags Jamaica leaders down in polls', written in the Los Angeles Times on March 15, 1992, the issue of age was raised by the then prime minister, Michael Manley. He was quoted as saying, "A political leader must have some sense of when younger people must have a chance."

Will history repeat itself?

He went on further, having declared he was feeling fit, to state: "It will be my choice. Nobody is trying to force me out." At that time, the PNP was in its first term, having been re-elected in 1989. The Carl Stone polls were showing the JLP 32 per cent, the PNP 30 per cent, and a high level of uncommitted, at 38 per cent. Manley felt he could pull off a win, but Carl Stone declared otherwise. He said Manley's optimism was misplaced and that the voters had lost faith in his ability. He further went on to say, "The Opposition Jamaica Labour Party is virtually assured of a landslide in the next elections."

Ill health led to Manley's retirement from politics. He was replaced by P.J. Patterson, and history has recorded that in 1993, the landslide victory went to the PNP. Patterson went on to lead his party to a historic four straight general election victories.

Let us fast-forward to 2011. The polls are in. Portia Simpson Miller's PNP is ahead by four points in both the Bill Johnson and Don Anderson polls. Effectively, if an election were called on the day of the polls, the PNP would be winning 53 per cent, and the JLP 47 per cent. In the 2007 election, the JLP polled 50.5 per cent, and the PNP, 49.5 per cent. Then, the JLP was untried, having spent 18 years in the political wilderness. It had a lot of money and goodwill. The PNP was showing signs of disunity. It was the best of times for the JLP, yet the election turned out to be the closest ever in terms of seat count.

Andrew Holness has shown a bounce in the current polls. Many are wondering if he has peaked or whether there is room for improvement. What is certain is that the PNP numbers have more or less remained constant in or around 40 per cent for several polls. Essentially, while the PNP has not grown much, it has not lost any ground to the JLP.

It would appear that the PNP is maintaining its share of the electorate, while the JLP, under Holness' impending leadership, is only recovering the disaffected Labourites who went to sleep under the dismal performance in the economy and the embarrassment of the Dudus extradition issue by the Golding administration, which included Mr Holness. People are still hungry, jobless, finding it hard to pay bills and simply survive from day to day. How Mr Holness addresses these issues will determine if his bounce in the polls will be like that of Sarah Palin in the 2008 US election.

Like President Obama, Portia Simpson Miller, through her proposal for a Jamaica Emergency Employment Programme, has chosen to focus on job creation as a way of improving the lives of the people. That proposal, at her conference, forced the JLP into the necessity of dumping its current leader. The question on people's mind now is, having got rid of Mr Golding, will Mrs Simpson Miller be able to also dispatch his virtue? Will Andrew Holness test the current polls and call the election now, or will he await the new voters' list due at the end November? Necessity or virtue is a choice facing Holness, and the coming days will reveal whether he is the real leader or just a face card.

Lambert Brown is president of the University and Allied Workers Union. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and labpoyh@yahoo.com.