Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

VINCENT EDWARDS, a long-serving member of the People's National Party (PNP), believes Peter Phillips' loss in last week's presidential race will alienate the party's intellectual base. This, he says, could keep the PNP out of power for some time.

"If you look at the party's history, it has always done well when it has the backing of the intelligentsia; they make the policies and handle fund-raisers," Edwards said Friday during an interview with The Sunday Gleaner. "How things stand, the party is going to have problems between now and the next elections."

The 75-year-old Edwards backed Phillips in an acrimonious presidential contest which was won convincingly by the incumbent, Portia Simpson Miller. It was the second time in 21 months that Phillips, a former University of the West Indies lecturer, was beaten for the post by Simpson Miller, a populist who is Jamaica's first female prime minister.

resignations

Last Monday, Phillips announced his resignation as the leader of opposition business in Parliament. Maxine Henry-Wilson, Fitz Jackson and Sharon Hay-Webster, all Phillips supporters and senior PNP members, followed suit.

They represent the PNP's middle-class faction with which Simpson Miller has been at odds since she assumed leadership in March 2006. In the lead-up to the polls, her supporters accused the Phillips camp of undermining her.

Edwards served the PNP as a two-term councilor and made three unsuccessful attempts for Parliament in general elections. In 1993, he supported Simpson Miller when she unsuccessfully ran against P.J. Patterson for party president. The difference between then and now, Edwards stressed, was that Patterson went for a policy of inclusion when he won.

"That's the biggest problem they have with Peter Phillips - he had the audacity to run against the incumbent," said Edwards. He points out that this goes against the principles of the party's most influential founding father.

"Norman Manley was never like that. He always left the door open for a challenge," he said.

Edwards says he has been a PNP member for over 60 years. The party he cut his political teeth on was built on the middle-class ideas of Norman Manley and 'high-brown' members, such as Noel Nethersole.

appealed to the working class

In 1968, when Manley's son, Michael, succeeded him as party president, he not only had middle-class backing, but appealed to the working class due to his position as an island supervisor with the National Workers' Union.

Edwards noted that while the common man provided the votes for Manley's landslide win in the 1972 general election, the intelligentsia's contribution to that victory was just as significant.

He said the intelligentsia has dwindled considerably since Patterson retired as party president nearly three years ago, and the decline is likely to continue with Phillips' defeat.

'In 1968, when Manley's son, Michael, succeeded him as party president, he not only had middle-class backing, but appealed to the working class.'