EDITORIAL - Rescuing the JLP

After a crushing defeat in last week's general election, it would be quite expected if the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leadership was in a state of despondency.

Any despair would have been worsened by the magnitude of the loss. For while they would have contemplated defeat, the best money, like most pollsters, bet the outcome would be tight.

The JLP, however, won only 21 seats in the House of Representatives, giving 42, or a two-thirds majority, to the People's National Party (PNP). The JLP is now the first governing party in Jamaica to have been chucked out after a single term. Indeed, while more than 300,000 electors were added to the register over the past four years, the JLP polled roughly 7,000, or more than two per cent, fewer votes than in the 2007 election.

Moreover, the PNP's return to power is after a short four-year hiatus on the opposition benches, that followed an unprecedented four consecutive terms, or nearly 19 years in Government.

These facts feed the often-declared notion that the PNP is Jamaica's natural majority party and deepen any feeling of dejection harboured by Andrew Holness, who, so far, has led the JLP only for a few months.

Mr Holness, of course, has cause for serious concern about the state and future of his party. He would, however, be wrong to assume that the situation is hopeless. Things could have been worse - as they have in the past been for the JLP and the PNP.

In the ideologically divisive election of 1980, the PNP won only nine seats in the then 60-seat House. Thirteen years later, the JLP, led by Mr Holness' mentor, Edward Seaga, won only eight.

These precedents offer perspective, not formula. So, Mr Holness must be clear that the JLP cannot be rebuilt on hope. He and his advisers, if serious, should commission a cold, hard, honest and independent analysis of what went wrong with the party. They also have to determine whether the party has the personnel to drive its reconstruction and, if so, how this is to be achieved.

Is holness up to it?

But first, Mr Holness must decide whether he really wants the job, determine whether he is the best person for it, and if he has the stomach for it. In that regard, leadership of the JLP and the prime ministership of Jamaica are not ends in themselves, but means to the end of building a better Jamaica, which, in turn, means hard, gritty work.

As party to this process, Mr Holness must ask why much of the JLP's natural constituency appeared to have abstained, or that their vote was a commodity to be bought with cash. Then there is the fact that those JLP candidates who survived the rout were largely the older, battle-scarred warriors, who occupied reasonably safe or garrison seats. The JLP must ask why?

Mr Holness must determine who among this group might resist a reform agenda, pushed by a leader who they may have deemed a pushy upstart when he emerged as favourite to capture Bruce Golding's disintegrated tenure.

Hopefully, the JLP will engage in robust introspection and self-criticism and emerge with a clear philosophy and a strong leader, without tearing itself apart, as has been too often the case in its recent history.