The People's National Party (PNP), as this newspaper previously suggested, could have done far worse than electing Peter Bunting as its general secretary.

Indeed, the mere fact of Mr Bunting's elevation is a huge improvement on what preceded him in Donald Buchanan, who often mistook bombast and simpleton humour as effective tools in the job of convincing electors on the merits of his party.

His success was due to the opposite.In the event, the choice that initially came before the PNP's National Executive Committee (NEC), in Mr Bunting and Dr D.K. Duncan was largely one of experience and political track record against relative youth and proven managerial competence.

Mr Bunting is not yet 50. Dr Duncan is 67, a veteran of the ideological wars of the 1970s and the political meandering of the 1990s. He took his venerated organising skills to the service of the now comatose National Democratic Movement when that party's founder, the current prime minister, Mr Golding, was still a member.

While not exactly a political neophyte, having previously served briefly in the Parliament and Government in the early 1990s, Peter Bunting cut his teeth on finance and banking. Indeed, he was a founding partner in the investment bank Dehring, Bunting and Golding, which he impressively built and profitably led until its sale last year to Bank of Nova Scotia.

When Dr Duncan pulled out of the race at the eleventh hour - ostensibly in line with his support of the recommendation of a team that appraised the reasons for the party's defeat in last September's general election - he apparently hoped that Mr Bunting would follow suit. In that event another candidate would have arisen. Mr Bunting did not oblige, and significantly, the PNP's president, the Opposition leader, Mrs Portia Simpson Miller, did not press the case for a review of the appraisal committee's report and recommendation before a decision was made on a general secretary. There are two probable readings to Mrs Simpson Miller's approach: that she recognised that the tide was strongly in favour of Mr Bunting and did not wish to risk a repudiation of her authority; or, more likely, that despite the arguments to the contrary, she does not see the new general secretary as a stalking horse for her opponents and has no reservations about working with Mr Bunting.

Mr Bunting's value in the role of general secretary, whatever may be his ultimate ambition, is the freshness he brings to the position as a successful businessman with management skills. But, perhaps more important, he is likely to help the party rebuild a bridge to a constituency that has been eroding over the past 25 years.

At its most vibrant the PNP represented a coalition of classes and interests, who found place under an umbrella of social democracy. That coalition started to unravel in the 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s as the party retreated from its intellectual and philosophical core. It is not without reason that the PNP has largely been unable to win seats in the north belt of St Andrew.

As the PNP would have recognised from the previous incumbent, the general secretary is not necessarily effective when he shouts loudly. Competent management, allied with Mrs Simpson Miller's appeal, could prove a profitable asset.