Former Senate president says Hanna needs to resolve discord in her constituency

Former Senate President Floyd Morris has declared his support for Mark Golding as the next president of the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP), describing the St Andrew Southern Member of Parliament (MP) as a consensus-builder who can work with different individuals to get things done.

“This is a quintessential trait of a strategic leader and one that is needed for the PNP at this time,” Morris said in a column which will be published in full in tomorrow’s Daily Observer.

Morris, who last week penned a column in which he did a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of Golding and Lisa Hanna, the other contender for the presidency, argued that the new PNP leader “must be able to get all the different groups under the big tent and start the process of reunification”.

Delegates of the 82-year-old party will, on November 7, vote to replace Dr Peter Phillips who submitted his resignation as PNP president after the September 3 General Election in which the PNP was humiliated 14-49 seats by the Jamaica Labour Party.

In recent weeks, prominent delegates and officers of the party have been declaring support for either candidate, and just last Friday a quarrel erupted in the PNP Youth Organisation (PNPYO) over which of the two has majority support in the youth arm.

In a video released Friday, PNPYO General Secretary Dexroy Martin said he and 13 other delegates from the party’s youth arm are backing Golding. However, that claim was challenged by PNPYO Kingston Parish Chair Kedron Allen.

“There are 21 delegates currently from the YO who are able to vote, and to say that 14 of them are supporting Comrade Golding is erroneous and not factual,” Allen told the Jamaica Observer.

Noting the disunity in the PNP, which has been blamed as a factor in the general election loss, Morris — who had backed Phillips when his presidency was challenged last year by then Manchester Central MP Peter Bunting — said his decision to support Golding, who had sided with Bunting, was based on his assessment that the organisational imperative for the PNP now was unification.

“There are a number of groupings in the PNP which are rotated around personalities, rather than ideas. This is eating away at the potential of the organisation,” said Morris.

“It has long been established that when the PNP is united it is an unstoppable force. So even if the leader is popular, as seen in 2006 with the election of Comrade Portia Simpson Miller as president, the movement will not win an election if there are deep internal divisions,” he added.

Morris pointed to Golding’s performances in the Senate and as a government minister, and said his character and integrity will aid in the rebuilding of public trust in politicians.

According to Morris, his reason for not throwing his support behind Hanna is rooted in her failure to resolve the differences she has with PNP supporters in her St Ann South Eastern constituency.

“Various attempts have been made to solve the problems, but to no effect. As the leader for the constituency, Lisa should have demonstrated greater rapprochement with the Comrades to settle the problems bedevilling the constituency for the past 10 years. This has not been done, and a constituency that has been most loyal and faithful to the PNP since Adult Suffrage has become marginal under Lisa’s stewardship,” Morris wrote.

His reference was to the fact that Hanna, who has been accused of being divisive, held on to the seat in the September 3 General Election by a mere 31 votes over Delroy Granston, a newcomer to politics, who was placed in the race just over two weeks before the election.

“Lisa has to be accountable for this,” Morris said. “When she took over the constituency in 2007, the PNP still had a comfortable margin of over 2,000 votes.”

The new PNP president, he argued, will be required to traverse the island and assist in rebuilding the party. “Significant work needs to be done over the next few years to rebuild the party and capacitate the workers of the movement. How does Lisa purport to do this when St Ann South Eastern is under significant threat? And, what will she do with those Comrades with whom she has had significant disagreement over the years? Will they be pushed out of the PNP under her leadership of the national organisation? These are Comrades that Lisa went to the constituency and saw in 2007 and were there before her entrance working with Seymour Mullings and Aloun Assamba. They and their families have built up that constituency as a bastion for the organisation over the years, and the moment they withdrew their support, because of the imbroglio with Lisa, we have seen the lowest margin of victory for the PNP in the constituency,” Morris argued.

He said he did not arrive at his decision easily, as Golding was instrumental in Bunting’s challenge to Phillips that “intensified the deep divisions affecting the party and contributed to Bunting’s defeat in Manchester Central”.

However, someone has to break the “inter-generational cycle of bitterness” affecting the party, he said, adding, “This is not the PNP that I grew up in, and I am prepared to set aside my anger with the challenge of 2019 and put my mark for Mark. I believe he is the best man to unite the PNP at this time.”

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/morris-declares-support-for-golding-former-senate-president-says-hanna-needs-to-resolve-discord-in-her-constituency_206742