Good grief! I wuz wrong!

Gordon Robinson, Contributor

As I write, The Old Ball and Chain is downstairs slaving over a hot stove preparing a large dish of stewed crow for me to eat.  Why? Because not only did my correct-score bet on the election go up in smoke, but my massive punt on a JLP win in the outright market is, like the JLP itself, also in shambles.

Old BC, now having to tu'n har han' mek fashan instead of dining out, isn't speaking to me. Her two remaining sons at home, D.J. Rob, The Computer Geek, and SputNick, The Terrorist, who were promised a visit to their favourite Chinese restaurant, are inconsolable, and the third, Andrew, The Ampersand, has retreated to Trinidad where he finally found work in September having failed for months to locate one of the Jamaican jobs, jobs, jobs despite an excellent tertiary education.

In the vernacular, "Lawd a massy!"

No consolation

It's no consolation that all 'professional' pollsters were also wrong to varying degrees. My own tongue-in-cheek prediction of a JLP landslide was as reliable as any of that lot who, after applying much science, all predicted a cliffhanger going one or the other way. At least I got the landslide right.

But I've been digging this embarrassing hole for myself for some time now. Beginning almost two years ago, in the midst of the Manatt saga, I assured readers that this Jamaican electorate had wised up and wouldn't return this PNP to power. Why? Because of the contemptuously undemocratic way the PNP treated the electorate after the 2007 election.

Despite being voted out as a sitting prime minister, Portia stubbornly refused to resign as party leader to give the nation a fresh choice next time around. No caucus of senior PNP officials told her to go. The PNP obviously believed the electorate was the same simpering, shallow bunch of fist-waving, finger-saluting sheep that it became in the '70s and '80s. The PNP was right.

I was very specific in my warning to Portia to resign as PNP leader or suffer defeat at the next election. On May 30, 2010 ('Now to the Orange Elephant'), after reminding Portia of the depressing electoral similarities between former British PM Gordon Brown and herself, and that Brown resigned as Labour Party leader immediately after losing that election, I wrote:

"Now, let us contrast Gordon Brown's reaction to the will of the British electorate with our own Portia Simpson Miller's. She, too, was thrust into the role of prime minister solely by her party's delegates. At the first opportunity, the Jamaican electorate rejected her and her party. Her first reaction was to refuse to concede defeat on the night of the election. Then, she mulishly stuck fast as [PNP leader], apparently with every intention of forcing a captive electorate to return her to office as the only alternative in the event that it becomes fed up with the incumbent."

Warnings for Portia

I went on:

"She does not accept the electorate's will and stubbornly fights on. This forces her party into an undignified public display of disunity in the form of a leadership challenge. Not one, single representative of the people who rejected her now preening themselves in Parliament has taken her to task for her undemocratic behaviour."

I delivered another warning on September 7, 2010 ('It's the PNP's fault'). After rehashing previous PNP administrations' failings, I wrote:

"After being voted out, the PNP stubbornly refused to accept the electorate's will or 'full responsibility' for its failings. The old guard still applies vice-like grips to senior opposition positions and hopes for Cabinet reappointments ... . This is what allows JLP sycophants, responding to unanswerable [Manatt] allegations, to shout hypocrisy!"

Instead of heeding my free advice, Portia, revelling in opinion polls that put her well ahead of Driva in any contest; refusing to accept that anybody with a pulse (and some without) could've done as well; and obviously reading the electorate much better than I, delivered a rousing conference speech full of the old politics and new insultingly impossible promises. Subsequently, on September 28, 2010 ('Progressive Agenda vs Regressive Record'), I tried again:

"As Portia promised perpetual growth, I wondered, 'How?' Just before Gilbert, Jamaica had a budget surplus of 1.5 per cent of GDP, which subsequently became a deficit of 1.5 per cent. By 2007, it was 3.7 per cent. In 1990, the US dollar equated J$6.50; in 2007, J$70.40. From 1990 to 2007, average annual growth rates were about one per cent, inclusive of three years of negative growth; and Jamaica became one of the 10 most indebted countries in the world ... .

" ... What's new, Portia? Will you give us the same old leaders; same old economic guru; same old economic plan? You now preach growth and promise tax incentives. Why now? Why not do it back then? Is it that time in Opposition and lust for power concentrates the mind wonderfully?"

Still the PNP studiously ignored me. So, on March 22, 2011 ('Respect, please!'), I cranked up the warning a notch. After setting out several ethical failures of the Government (including Everald Warmington's boorish behaviour), I wrote:

"So the JLP begged for public abuse. But, I hope readers aren't extrapolating from this persistent critique any endorsement of the PNP. Far from it.

"The JLP does occupy one sliver of moral high ground vis-a-vis the PNP. It's elected. At that same time, voters rejected the PNP, its leader and key officers. How did the PNP react? It spat in the electorate's face. Portia refused to resign. Senior members of the rejected Cabinet, like Omar Davies and Phillip Paulwell, cling to high office within the Opposition and seem set to ask voters to reverse themselves at the next poll.

"... This isn't personal. ... Personally, for example, I've a lot of respect and admiration for Omar Davies ... . But, we live in a democracy. ... My opinion, a minority one, doesn't count. The majority specifically rejected him and others. ... They oughtn't to be renominated."

Then, I made my views on how the next election should turn out crystal clear when I wrote:

"I hope voters don't consider returning the PNP to Government until it proves it respects the electorate. Respect means giving the electorate a real leadership choice and a proposed Cabinet cleansed of key former ministers recently rejected by voters. A return to future Cabinet by any of these rejects via garrison is disrespect. Disrespect is treating us as fools by forcing us to choose between the failed and the rejected. Until the PNP gives us this respect, I hope voters keep the evil they elected."

Oh, dear! Either I don't know what true respect is or the electorate doesn't mind the occasional bit of disrespect once it comes with a little sugar-coating. Or sugar daddies. As I pointed out on May 29, 2011 ('Why pluck the Jack of Spades'?) regarding the past versus the future:

"The average age of the above tired, failed and discarded bunch is 57 years of age. All will be over 50 if elected next time out. ... What exactly does this antiquated assembly have to offer the 18-25 age demographic which is ... getting more and more disconnected from the process? These are the persons who need first jobs; homes; and ... educated life partners. What's being offered to women who are the overwhelming majority of our tertiary students and the inevitable leaders of tomorrow?

"Why can't the PNP understand that recycling rejects like Omar Davies, whose policies extinguished the spirit of Jamaican entrepreneurship for at least a generation, Robert 'Chicken Feed' Pickersgill and Phillip 'NetServ' Paulwell is just not on? In 2017, when a re-elected PNP (they hope) will have just about settled into the job and be campaigning for a second term, Portia will be 72 and Peter Phillips, 68.

"Is the PNP serious? Are these the leaders to take our youth into the future?"

Looks like they'll have to be. The PNP has been proven correct to ignore esoteric idiots like Gordon Robinson bleating on about "respect" and "democracy" and, instead, to rely on the polls of that time that assured the PNP a return to power was a foregone conclusion. Nevertheless, proving I'm a sucker for punishment, I exposed my blind faith in a concept of newfound voter maturity when, on September 17, 2011 ('Over and over'), I persisted in my loud warnings:

"One thing I promise Peter Phillips and the PNP. It's not all the time that 'coward man keep sound bone'. In this case, false 'unity' won't be winning any elections. Don't watch the polls. They are an expression of Jamaica's current intense disappointment with Driva, and not by any means an endorsement of the PNP or Portia. When crunch time comes and Jamaica is asked to cast its collective vote, we won't make the 1989 mistake again. Either the PNP wheels and comes again or it will be spending some more time on the Opposition benches. We're not stupid. We won't fall for that trick over and over again."

Nail in electoral coffin

Well, what do I know? Apparently, the promise of a ride in the JEEP has overcome these esoteric principles. Poor economic management by the JLP resulting in massive job losses and joblessness for the youth sounded that party's death knell. And the JLP can thank Driva for driving the nail into its electoral coffin with his defence of Dudus. Despite rejection in the 2007 election, the PNP knew it needn't wheel and come again. It only had to come again.

Now it's the JLP that's suffering from a severe case of electile dysfunction and who's now burdened with my identical and similarly unwanted advice. The JLP built its entire campaign around Young Andrew as leader. The electorate has rejected that campaign. I hope that Young Andrew walks his own talk about 'new' politics and shows respect for the electorate by immediately resigning as JLP leader to ensure a different choice at the next election. Young Andrew, that large sign on the electoral country bus you glimpsed just before it ran you over read, "Ta-Ta!"

Happy New Year. For 2012, I wish you all fast horses at long odds, beautiful but submissive women, rich but generous men; and married children with jobs. In other words, may you all die and go to Heaven!

Peace and love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.