Dawn RitchFAR FROM having too great an expectation of Mrs. Simpson Miller, some continue to underestimate her.
Much ado has been made in media and in the middle class about her first hundred days. Why should these 100 days be much different to the ones that went before? She barely had a look-in on the current budget. They found money so she'd have something to announce in her first presentation as Prime Minister, and that's about it.
As to the composition of the Cabinet, Madam Prime Minister chose not to change it. Yet, supporters of the losing candidates in the People's National Party (PNP) are still complaining about rancour. Indeed, even her own supporters are grumbling not only about there being no changes to the Cabinet, but no staff changes at Jamaica House either.
She's been a Cabinet minister for 17 years, but being prime minister is a horse of a different colour. No sensible person who takes over the leadership of an organisation makes wholesale changes in the first few months. Not unless it is a change of the ruling political party in a general election, or a coup d'état.
Neither took place in Jamaica on February 25, when Mrs. Simpson Miller was elected PNP president by the delegates of that party. It just feels like that way to Jamaica's middle class and media, which is why there's so much fretting among them.
ACQUIRING SUPPLIES OF FUEL
Since taking office, Mrs. Simpson Miller has been shoring up the external supplies of fuel for the island at a time of global uncertainty in that area. She also took receipt of 15 new fire engines, with 18 more to come, and lined up US$100 million line of credit from Brazil for the Jamaican private sector.
She's locking in future supplies of oil, at the best prices she can get. And Venezuela is already on board. Between this and the fire engines, that's the lights on, the house not burning down, and the Jamaican private sector getting a second lease on life.
PM'S DIRECTIVE
On top of that, she issued a directive last week, that no board chairman of a public body is to get private work from it, even if he or she declares an interest. It seems to me, therefore, that more than half of them may have to resign soon.
While acting as Prime Minister last year when Patterson was away, Mrs. Simpson Miller famously stood on a point of principle in the House of Parliament. As Minister of Local Government, she was before the Standing Committee of the House. The Opposition had moved a resolution that enough money should be provided for the fire service. She abstained in the vote, while those on the government benches voted against this motion for the whole world to see on national television. That was how she got the budget to import the fire engines.
She refused to agree with her colleagues that enough money was being provided for the fire services, and earned herself their public ridicule and scorn. K.D. Knight told her an expletive while in the House, Maxine Henry-Wilson and Wykeham McNeill pointed their fingers in her face. Everything was caught on camera, again, for the whole world to see.
VERY GOOD PREPARATION
The country now has 15 new engines, and more or less within the first hundred days of office. That's very good preparation and performance on Mrs. Simpson Miller's part. She demonstrated long ago that she understands priorities and the role of public administration.
No discussion of the first 100 days would be complete without reference to her standing up for her personal faith in front of a mainly secular intelligentsia. In Jamaica, God is perceived as largely a low-class phenomenon, and ought not to be associated with a post as elevated as that of prime minister. The intelligentsia and high society find the fact that she defends it more than a little embarrassing.
As to her repeating that she's the first female prime minister, every taxi man in Jamaica is bawling and hoping she'll stop talking about it soon. It makes them so uncomfortable, you would have thought that she'd brought up race.
That she did as well. But she's brought it up at the beginning of her administration and not at the end, like Patterson. So she's not using it as an excuse, but stating it as a fact. No one can accuse her of being mutton dressed up as lamb, even if she looks like a lamb.
The private sector is discovering to their chagrin, that Portia is no lamb. She does not come when bid. They had expected that as a God-fearing woman from humble origins she would have. They don't know Mrs. Simpson Miller very well. Having come this far, she's unlikely to consent to being managed by anybody else.
It's hard to believe that Dr. Omar Davies, Minister of Finance didn't get some sort of message from her. Who can want to be president of the ruling party one week, and retire from politics the next? Such a person runs the risk of being exposed as capricious. Surely not being Minister of Finance after the next election shouldn't cause him to want to pick up his marbles and run. But evidently it does, and he'd be no great loss either.
I was very disappointed, therefore, when he changed his mind, and announced that he will, after all, run for what he calls "national office." That, silly, is not in your gift, but in that of the Prime Minister assuming of course that you win your seat again.
PREPARED TO SACRIFICE POPULARITY
It seems to me, therefore, that Mrs. Simpson Miller is prepared to sacrifice some of her personal popularity in order to go to the next election with the Government and party more or less intact.
Some people are going to need all the time in the world to get accustomed to her. Many of them are in her own party, and some among her own supporters. It's almost as though she's being publicly pilloried because she didn't turf out all of Patterson's people, and install her own.
Had she made even a few heads roll there would have been no criticism either internally or externally. But it would have eviscerated her party before a general election. All we've had is Omar fussing about whether or not he should continue in politics. That's clearly a sign that he believes his head will roll, once she wins a general election. And since he was thinking of doing it right away, a general election cannot be far off.
Everybody would like to choose Portia's Cabinet. But the fact remains that only she gets to do so, and has chosen to defer it until she has a national mandate. Ironically, only the threat of a general election allows her any control over the present Cabinet. Certainly, they'd be wrong to interpret it as a sign of weakness.
