Ian Boyne
For the first time in 18 years the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) meets in annual conference not as an Opposition ready to unleash a barrage of shots to the body politic of the People's National Party (PNP) Government, but as a government chastened by the harsh reality of governance.
Party leader and Prime Minister Bruce Golding himself admitted in a national broadcast last Sunday night to the "punishing" effect of a host of price increases. "These have been rough times for the consumer and I know that many of you are hurting," the Prime Minister had to concede exactly two months after being sworn in to office.
Negative effects
It has been a baptism of fire for Golding and the JLP. Aside from the unexpected huge holes which they said they found in the budget upon assuming office, they have been hit by sharp increases in the price of oil, wheat, fertiliser as well as the negative effects of the sub-prime crisis in the United States.
Even Mother Nature has been harsh and unfavourable, visiting the country with more rains in the past six weeks, Golding complains, than we have had in a whole year. And further damaging our infrastructure and agriculture, already reeling under the weight of Hurricane Dean, which has made us $23 billion poorer. Bruce Golding and his party go into conference today with all these burdens threatening to dampen the natural jubilation and glee which should attend the first annual conference after a defeat of the popular and charismatic Portia Simpson Miller. But all is not gloomy for the JLP.
Thanks to the PNP, there are a couple of scandals which should provide some good histrionics and polemics at the conference and which should dim any wishful longing for the just-ousted PNP Government. What has been dubbed the Cuban light bulb scandal has already darkened the prospects of the PNP in the Local Government elections, and the fact that Trafigura is again on the front page has been a blessing to the present government, faced with rising prices and a spiralling crime rate which refuses to respect any change of government.
That the JLP's seat and popular vote margin is extremely slim, coupled with an aggressive stance of the PNP - though moderated somewhat now by the scandals - means that the JLP can ill afford any mistakes. The party can't take any chances and has to walk the tightrope rather skilfully. But Golding, as I have always maintained, should not be underestimated. His leadership skills have been under-rated by people without and within his party.
Golding has done what not every Prime Minister has had the emotional intelligence to do; He has come to the people and openly acknowledge their pain and plight and has echoed their own thoughts and fears. Golding, I have long maintained, is an excellent communicator and has a remarkable ability to strike a rapport with people. He understands the struggles, aspirations and anguish of people. As I wrote before the election, the PNP under-estimated him to its own regret.
Sensing the mood of many, Golding, emphasised in his national broadcast last Sunday, "I know that some of you are inclined to become impatient," adding, "I am impatient, too, but these things take time. And we have only been there for two months!"(Exclamation his) This is a man who has his ears to the ground. My advice to him is to keep his ears there, not just to the party sycophants and cultists who are inclined to tell the emperor how well dressed he is and how pleased the masses are with his attire.
Indeed, we are, in a sense, at a very good place in Jamaica today. If we seized this moment, and if Mr. Golding used the conference today to engage the process, there will be some hope for us. I have always lamented the fact that the politicians are not telling the people the truth about our condition; that they have profited from our ignorance and the parochialism of our elites. They have been the beneficiaries of the general lack of sophistication of our intelligentsia.
Exogenous factors
Party leader Bruce Golding wades through a crowd of supporters at last year's Jamaica Labour Party's annual conference held at the National Arena, in St. Andrew. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer
It was of interest to me to hear the Prime Minister outline the ways in which exogenous factors weighed heavily on our day-to-day economic burdens. First, there was the hefty Hurricane Dean bill which greeted the JLP Government. Then oil prices rose by 33 and a third per cent, from US$72 to $96 per barrel, between August and now, and is moving to the $100 mark.
This has pushed up everything, as the Prime Minister explained, as some 90 per cent of our energy supplies come from imported oil. As though that were not enough, fertiliser has also gone up and with it a host of related goods. As the Prime Minister said, "This has dealt a severe blow to our farmers who need to replant now following the damage to their crops caused by the hurricane and the subsequent rains." Corn prices have accelerated, which means that chicken meat had to be increased.
To add to all of that has been the fact that wheat harvests in Canada and Australia have been significantly reduced because of adverse weather conditions. "The world inventory of wheat sticks is the lowest it has been in 60 years. Hence in the last two months the cost of wheat imported to Jamaica has risen by more than 50 per cent, putting up the price of flour, bread and other staple items," our Prime Minister told us last Sunday in his first national broadcast.
"More of excuses"
The Prime Minister was not through with the litany of imported woes, clearly not of his or his party's making, and which are already softening the cheers for his government. He linked the continued slide in our dollar to the sub-prime crisis in the United States which made it "not possible to enter the market to cover the $100 million index bond which matured recently". The response to that reasoned explanation from the Prime Minister, who was levelling with the people, was a dismissal from former PNP candidate, Dr. Carol Archer, as "more of excuses", according to a report in Tuesday's Gleaner.
How could Dr. Archer, a lecturer at a university - despite her partisan commitments - dismiss what is a rationally inescapable set of explanations as "more of excuses"?
But before you get as disgusted as I did, bear in mind that it is exactly what the JLP spokespersons were saying when they were in Opposition. This is the kind of foolish game the politicians play in this insanely partisan culture.
Silver bullets
This is why I have always warned politicians that if they continued to trade in people's ignorance and partisanship, they would regret it because the time would come when they want the people to understand the realities, but because they have so fed the cynicism and ignorance of people, the people will become drunk with it. I have been one constantly decrying our provincialism and philistinism, calling attention to the significant constraining role played by factors outside our control.
This is why no political party excites me about its supposed silver bullets for the economy. I know it's just grandstanding and demagoguery. This is why I wrote after the political debates in a column titled 'What the Debates Missed' (August12, 2007) that, "In all these debates there has not been enough focus from either journalists or debaters on the overriding global economy and the influence of exogenous factors. We are debating oblivious of the fact that a lot of the crucial decisions having to do with the lives of our people are not being decided in Kingston but in Washington, Geneva, Brussels, New York, Beijing and Tokyo. There is a constraint on our wish list imposed by powerful international factors".
Globalised system
But our politicians like to project the illusion of control and they have to establish some supreme difference between themselves and their political opponents. The fact is, however, that there is not much which separates them in this present post-Cold War, neo-liberal order.
I wrote further in that article showing how the media debates had missed the issues which the Prime Minister is now highlighting: "The JLP can make any number of promises and Portia can pledge any degree of commitment to the poor. Both will come up against the hard and harsh reality of a globalised economic system which is not sympathetic to social welfare and do-goodism."
We are facing it now. And if the PNP supporters and spokespersons now want to play the game which used to be played by the JLP in opposition; if musical chairs is what they are about while the country faces serious challenges, they can go on, but there must be an independent, Third Force (well-represented by Don Robotham) which refuses to play that game.
It is the best of times for if we can all lay down the propaganda armaments and come clean with the people, we might begin to prepare them to face the big, harsh world squarely and creatively.
We are now realising that the reason crime was high was not because KD Knight or Peter Phillips was national security minister. It was not because of the PNP's being in power. (The JLP Security Minister is the most criticised in the Cabinet because we have not learnt).
Golding's task at the Arena today is to energise his party followers, but more importantly, to bring a message of hope, unity and reconciliation to the country. He needs all hands on deck to face the serious internal and external problems.
Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be contacted at ianboyne1@yahoo.com
