Don Robotham, Contributor

The defeat of the People's National Party (PNP) in the recent by-elections in North East St Catherine was entirely predictable. This defeat, the second in a row, has exposed the utter bankruptcy of the political line being followed since the loss of the 2007 general election.

The problems of the PNP go way beyond the issue of leadership. Indeed, the leadership issue is really a symptom of a deeper malaise afflicting the party as a whole, and Jamaican politics more generally, including the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Just as the JLP's problems have not really been solved by exchanging Bruce Golding for Edward Seaga, a leadership change in the PNP, which does not address the root problems, will simply be cosmetic and will not lead to a political renewal.

What is the fundamental problem which faces the PNP? There really are two. The first has to do with the absence of any fundamental values and strategic political goals; the second follows from the first and has to do with the PNP's social composition and representativeness.

The first problem actually began with the second coming of Michael Manley, but has been made especially acute by the dismal political heritage from the Patterson era. It would be untrue and foolish to claim that Mr Patterson made no positive contributions to Jamaican social, economic and cultural life. It was during his period that the horrendous 1991 inflation was tamed (at an enormous price, but tamed), and an entirely new era of expansion took place in the Jamaican tourist industry - just to take two issues. It is the Spanish hotel investment of the Patterson era which is playing a major role in saving our skin at the moment, boosting arrivals from Canada by an enormous 23.9 per cent by the end of 2008, in the face of declines in the US market.

Crucial and historic step

It is also this Spanish connection, which is beginning to open up the Latin American market - an absolutely crucial and historic step for the future of Jamaican tourism and economic development, more generally. Under Patterson, the entire communication sector of Jamaica was revolutionised by enormous increases in cellphone usage, and huge improvements in our transportation systems - including the proliferation of 'deportees', for which he was foolishly ridiculed in some circles. This, too, will prove to be an absolutely fundamental development for our future. But the single most important achievement of the Patterson era was not in the economic, but in the cultural-racial field. Under Patterson, blackness came to the fore in Jamaican society, to the annoyance of the usual suspects.

Where Patterson failed was in the political area, and this is haunting the PNP and the country today. Under his leadership, the party was converted to a vote-getting machine, without any clear political values or goals. Its group structure became a phantom while political education and the serious study of policy issues vanished. Even in the promotion of blackness, instead of embarking on a deep cultural remaking of Jamaican identity, the PNP simply used blackness as an excuse for cronyism and worse. Indeed, the corruption issue with which the party has become plagued and which it continues to evade, arose precisely out of this cynical manipulation of the 'black man time now' slogan.

The lumpenisation of the PNP - the JLP preceded it down that road - is connected to this organisational and political degeneration.

The conversion of the PNP into a pliable vote-getting machine required the marginalisation of the healthy social elements. Only those who were bent on holding on to State power and its gravy train would remain active in such an organisation.

The organised working class in the trade unions and the healthy parts of the middle class withdrew into private life. The uptown and downtown lumpen - wholly dependent on political handouts and bent on upward social mobility at all costs - stepped to the forefront. These two groups saw and still see control of the State as the key to their economic and social future.

Lumpen strategy

This is why it is fair to describe the post-general election strategy of the PNP as a lumpen strategy. The entire point of this strategy was to regain control of the State and its revenues by means of legal manoeuvres. Why they should be returned to power, and what they would do differently, and for whose benefit - such questions were considered irrelevant. From the point of view of the lumpen, they are indeed irrelevant. The point is to grab control of the State and to resume their parasitical life at the expense of the Jamaican people.

For the PNP to renew itself, it must clarify and renew its fundamental values and political goals. What does the party really stand for, and what does it seek to do for Jamaica? And which Jamaica? For there are several. What sort of government does it represent? How will it ensure that the lumpen are subordinated to the organised working and middle classes in its ranks? What will it do to address the corruption issues? These are not questions to be answered in the abstract, as if the party had not been in power for the past 19 years. On the contrary, for it to be taken seriously, the PNP has first to embark on that most difficult but necessary exercise - an open and comprehensive critique of its performance while in government, warts and all.

Only on the basis of what will undoubtedly be a painful exercise can the PNP move on to begin to address the difficult short- and long-term challenges facing Jamaica. This is especially urgent in the current context in which a very major global repositioning of the Jamaican economy will be required. Golding - a one man band - continues, in his public forums, to try to educate the Jamaican people about the really tough choices we face, not the least of which is the coming trial with the International Monetary Fund. Omar Davies began to take up some of the issues in his Budget presentation. Peter Phillips also has begun to present a broader vision with the launching of the Roxborough Institute. Portia Simpson Miller, Peter Bunting, Mark Golding and others need to jump in also and present their own perspectives to the Jamaican people. So far, both parties have barely scratched the surface of our problems and, to change the metaphor, are groping in the dark.

The greatest economic crisis since The Depression seems to be gradually subsiding in the developed economies. Nevertheless, all are agreed that any 'recovery' will be one in quotation marks. Unemployment is likely to remain stubbornly high for quite some time in the developed Western economies and economic growth anaemic, especially in Britain and the United States. A new global economic and political architecture is emerging in which China, India and Asia as a whole, as well as Latin America (primarily Brazil), are likely to play a far more central role. Excluding the Pre-Columbian period, from its very inception - for more than 500 years - the Jamaican economy and society developed entirely as an offshoot of European and American expansion.

Every single aspect of our way of life, although deeply rooted in African traditions, has been fundamentally shaped by this experience. Much of this will undoubtedly continue, but the world which is emerging will be sharply different from what we have grown accustomed to. We will have to reposition ourselves in this brave new world, if we are to survive and prosper. We will need the best efforts of our national leadership to help us face these challenges. The PNP can play the leading role in this process, but it has to dig deep to recover the critical traditions which allowed it to play this role in the past.

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