Campaign and political polling missteps

Observer headline reads "JLP needs rigorous exam: G2K head". How unkind to give comedians fodder to claim G2K needs its head examined.

Fun and joke aside, G2K's game plan was fundamentally flawed. Reasons aren't difficult to discern. Chief among these: its membership seems insufficiently aware of the history both of its own party and the country. I hear Machiavelli's Prince is compulsory reading for the group. But other material, on Jamaica, should adorn their bookshelf. For instance, Edith Clark's My Mother Who Fathered Me; Fernando Henriques Family and Colour in Jamaica and Philip Curtin's Two Jamaicas: The Role of Ideas in a Tropical Colony, 1830-1865. Round this off with Lady B's memoirs and indispensable grounding with the people - minimum!

Rudimentary understanding of such 'stuff' would have sensitised G2K to the dangers of overreach in negative ads attacking Mrs Simpson Miller, who both symbolises and is the reality of the aspirations of a majority of Jamaica's population. It is reminiscent of Edward Seaga using a black scandal (plastic) bag to portray P.J. Patterson from a JLP platform. The fact is, even if scandals were whirring, tumbling around the PNP 'Head', that was an unfortunate routine.

Long before WikiLeaks, the Public Records Office in London archived material telling us a bit about ourselves - how they see us. Mind you, unlike WikiLeaks, the material stays under wraps for 30 years but covering dispatches from colonial governors and others to the colonial secretary at Whitehall this is 'horse's mouth material' revealing how the colonial power viewed Jamaica and Jamaicans.

The Colonial Office saw Bustamante as a rabble-rouser. Although enjoying huge support from black working class and suffering masses in the 1940s, he and his party were more acceptable both to the Colonial Office and Jamaican planters and merchants than Manley and the PNP. They were figuring to upturn the status quo. Cousins Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante started out together. As they drifted apart, the PNP grew as the party of the urban brown and educated middle class seeking a mass base. It included the 'four Hs', later expelled from the Trade Union Council, interned by the colonial authorities in 1942 as communists. Interestingly, in colonial paternalistic mode, Sir Stafford Cripps, seeking their release, wrote of Ken Hill as "a very nice young Negro ... . This is exactly the type of man that good sensible handling can make a real asset to Jamaica, whereas shutting him up will only make him bitter and vengeful and won't do any good."

Cripps had been at the Ward Theatre September 1938 founding of the PNP where Norman Manley spoke of the "tremendous difference between living in a place and belonging to it and feeling that your own life and your destiny is irrevocably bound up in the life and destiny of that place."

Progressive and bold move

Cripps described the formation of the political party - PNP - as a progressive and bold move, and perhaps one of the most significant events in Jamaica's history.

The PNP began as a team linked by common goals forged through organisation. About five years later in 1943, Bustamante formed the Jamaica Labour Party - the BITU predated the JLP. The genesis of the two parties is radically different and their genetic codes may be seen alive today in the way they adjudicated leadership issues.

The charismatic, unchallenged individual, leadership and control Bustamante established were never replicated. Although no one since approached his unrivalled dominance - Hugh Shearer appeared to have the capacity but not the urge - the period of Edward Seaga's leadership came closest. Because however, such dominance was never generally accepted nor generated, a significant attrition rate of top -notch figures in the party ensued. Leadership issues surrounding Gang of Five, the split between Bruce Golding and Seaga leading to Golding's NDM sojourn and finally, the ousting of Seaga upon his subsequent return, are all part of the institutional memory of Jamaicans, whether PNP or JLP. Abruptly anointing Holness therefore appeared a cynical move - unbelievable.

Anecdotally, I must tell of my late 'bright-as-a-bulb' friend who suggested had Cheddi Jagan not existed in Guyana during the Cold War, Forbes Burnham would have invented him. Same for P. J. Patterson, had Seaga never existed, it would have suited P.J. to invent him! Indisputably, internal strife and Seaga's tenure were important in affording the PNP an unprecedented four terms in office.

Pervasive doubt

One may excuse G2K's lack of acquaintance with this history and its implications. But seasoned JLP strategists must possess this knowledge. Yet they chose to call an election, making campaign moves directly on the heels of Bruce Golding's resignation in an atmosphere of widespread and pervasive doubt as to true cause. The story of fatigue and stepping down for youth simply yawned. Furthermore, Jamaicans do exhibit a reverence for age. Pops, Dads, Mother are normally terms of endearment when addressing strangers and do signify respect.

My question to a JLP youth was: why would not young Prince Andrew, whom some now pejoratively, it seems, refer to as Baby Bruce, use the year he has to run the 50th anniversary celebrations, Olympics and most importantly, set a unique tone for himself? I was told PNP had none while JLP held all the cards - private-sector backing, money, youth, team unity and cohesion, stable exchange rate, business confidence and the clincher: techno-savvy youth pushing ICT - communications and networking to land the votes. JLP had to go now.

This I found inexplicable. The electorate wanted to know why. Indeed, it would appear as if they were hiding something - 'oonuh see, is trick dem ah trick we'? The whole Dudus-Manatt affair and 73 dead, the need for Golding to apologise facing calls for his resignation for misleading the people alongside the Brady 'strongback' resistance to being scapegoated, seeming disarray in the finance ministry and IMF uncertainty, gratuitous and unnecessary conflict with civil servants in breach of no rules or law, the impending JDIP scandal. These were huge negative hurdles.

Finally, the speed with which campaigning took off, seemed to have thrown polling into a tizzy. Sure, there would be enthusiasm as abrupt changes emerge. The youth vote, notions of new and different. All of these impact potential voters' thinking processes. This election it seems, for credible practical attempts at forecasting, required a revamp of the questions asked of potential voters. Yes, for comparison it must include questions previously asked, more importantly though, once 'dead heat or too-close-to-call status' is revealed, filtration and cross-check questions gathering mood and assessing intent become mandatory, even though survey costs increase. Admittedly, time was short but as last week's column noted, Jamaicans exhibit a 'robust, passionate morality - almost subliminally generated.' Surely, this played a part in the JLP's rout and significant non-voter turnout as people experienced disbelief and distrust of their message. Cynicism could also account for reportedly pervasive incidents of folks seeking cash to vote.

Polling is not hard science. It includes art. So-called 'soft data' is all the data. Responses are 'soft', expressions of thought, perhaps intent. Pollsters tabulate and squeeze them into numbers we've become comfortable interpreting.

Was PNP's playbook superior? Yes, that too.

Wilberne Persaud is author of 'Jamaica Meltdown: Indigenous Financial Sector Crash 1996'. wilbe65@yahoo.com