Is Portia's charm offensive credible?

by André Wright, Opinion Editor

As my wife and I fumbled away trying to unhitch a child car seat from its base Wednesday night, it became obvious that I had 'skulled' too many rocket-science classes at high school.

Of course, we had the manual, which demonstrated how to do everything but unhook the darn thing. As we pulled every lever and pressed every button in sight and out of sight, I began to hope that Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller's inaugural address on Thursday would be more hopeful and specific than the manual. Ho-hum.

Well, the wags have it that G2K is cursing its luck that a gust of wind didn't blow away Sista P's papers and cause crickets to go chirping at an eyes-rolling Peter Phillips. But the ill wind never came, and she got an A-plus for nailing the speech to the 10,000 guests, including the ubiquitous L.A. Lewis. The only person of note missing was Bruce Golding. But then again, maybe he didn't come because he thought the ushers would give away his seat, as they did at Portia's 2006 swearing-in.

Being a terminal cynic, I wasn't teleported to cloud nine by Thursday's rousing rhetoric that may have swelled the breast, stimulated the nerve endings and numbed the intellect.

Déjà vu

We've heard this 'inspiration' before. After all, Mr Golding, at his inauguration, dubbed himself the 'Chief Servant'. And servant he was, by defending Jamaica's most feared don from Judgement Day in the United States, and also in admitting to strategically shredding the Constitution to keep his dual-citizen trespassers in Parliament so the party could hold on to power.

Mrs Simpson Miller has vowed to champion an end to "the blame game" and to strive for "more civil and respectful behaviour in our Parliament". This when Sista P co-starred as head of an obstructionist Opposition in a horror movie that threatened, and delivered, a nightmare to the previous Government. (Of course, the main star was Bruce himself.) And since she's promising a respectful Parliament, she can just throw in world peace.

Much of her speech was the same airy-fairy sentimentality we have come to expect from prime ministers, largely without concrete mechanisms and timelines.

The pledges to celebrate our jubilee by making the Caribbean Court of Justice Jamaica's final appellate jurisdiction, and giving our royal tenant, Queenie, eviction notice, are perhaps the two time-bound decisions to which we can hold the Simpson Miller administration for 2012. Finally, we'll rid ourselves of our culturally irrelevant Freeloaders General who are handsomely paid at King's House for hand-shaking, photo ops and kissing boonoonoonus women.

Simpson Miller's reiteration of the mandate for a more activist state in a free-market economy, a manifesto touchstone, can be a winner. That, however, will depend on the Government finding the right balance between being innovator, facilitator and motivator. And we know how good governments usually are at business.

Vroom! Vroom! Beep! Beep!

The fear is that the Government's JEEP might not pass its fitness test. President Barack Obama's gamble with state-sponsored infrastructure projects has not had quite the effect of catapulting the US into greener pastures, although that country's unemployment rate has dipped from recessionary highs and growth has returned in dribs and drabs.

The bugbear for Mama P is whether she cuts a credible figure. I mean, we all love our mamas, but Portia's hugs-and-kisses capital will last for only so long. She promised yesterday that JEEP would be administered "in a transparent and non-partisan manner". That's all well and good, but will there be jobs for the boys? Will the PNP-aligned contractors who have had to 'take in' their pants for four years get a chance to 'let them out'? Will Portia run with it?

Both Mr Golding and Mrs Simpson Miller gave frothy mouthfuls of high-sounding hope. But it is the proof of the pudding that will test their difference - or sameness.

This was Portia yesterday: "... I call on all Jamaicans to take responsibility for our lives. Be the best student you can be; the best parent; the best teacher; doctor or nurse ... and strive to improve ourselves by reinvesting in our personal development."

This was Bruce in 2007:

"I believe that the babies that were born today ... have the potential to become the best scientists, the best engineers, the best doctors, the best technicians, the best entertainers, if we provide them with the right environment and the appropriate opportunities."

And I'll not bother quoting from Andrew Holness' tortuous, torturous speech. Unless you have an hour to spare.

Oh, I did manage to pry off that car seat. I Googled it. Now only if we could Google 'good governance', we'd be living in paradise.

Portia has promised; now let's see if she will fulfil.

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