The People’s National Party (PNP) has two good candidates vying for its presidency. Because I know and like both, and know many good and sensible people who are supporting either, it’s tempting to sit it out. But that’s not what an opinion column is for, is it? So I want to say who I think is better without saying anything negative about the other candidate, as I have nothing seriously negative to say about either.

Still, I’m remembering a speech where Ian Hayles listed a slew of PNP politicians who were more or less secretly targeting leadership of the party. In my view, Hayles was analysing accurately, and it colours my understanding of developments since. At the time the PNP was facing what was obviously going to be a historic beating.

This wasn’t your usual, “hey we’re a bit behind in the polls so we need to adjust and become more competitive”. It was more like: “There’s a massive iceberg up ahead, the GPS has us running right up into it, the lookouts are screaming, sirens are blaring, mothers are hugging their children and saying tearful goodbyes, and the Captain is in the Sick-Bay”.

Hayles’ indictment was that too many of his colleagues had calculated it was better to go down on an obviously sinking ship because it would allow them (personally) to emerge stronger from the carnage. Why not waltz on the deck of the Titanic since afterwards you might become captain of whatever is left, even if it’s only a piece of plyboard floating on the cold Atlantic.

Hence the Hayles challenge:

“If yuh tink a lie mi ah tell mek dem come to you and tell yuh that they will NOT run for Leader over the next two years in this Peoples National Party”.

That’s the background, in my mind, and I expected a race after the predictable loss, between Philip Paulwell and Peter Bunting.

I was completely wrong. Now we have Lisa Hanna, who I expected to vie for leadership in the next round (post-Bunting versus Paulwell), and the unexpected entrance of Mark Golding. As Omar Davies points out, Mark is unusual because “him never run dis ting dung”.

POLITICAL AMBITION

So let’s back up and talk a little about political ambition. We know not to pay too much heed or attention to politician twaddle about ‘service’ and whatnot. People who tend to go into politics generally do it for status, power, and benefits. Plus, it is a pretty glaring defect of our system that too many politicians spend their time doing little else than angling for leadership of the whole enterprise.

Anyhow, I’m certainly not saying there’s anything necessarily wrong with that, because it takes some powerful motivation to convince people to give up large portions of their lives sitting through interminable meetings, graduations, and funerals, only to then step outside to make friends with the belligerent community leader who consumed two Guinness, one Red Stripe, and three spliffs for breakfast. But even so, that ambition is best contained and channelled by some sense of the greater good, or it becomes mightily destructive. And that’s the virus that I feel had broken loose in the PNP.

Within the PNP ambition unmoored by much motivating principle had become a coronavirus-like pandemic, fuelled by the fallacy that ‘Jamaica is PNP country’, that particularly irksome crystallisation of an elemental and undeserved arrogance.

When someone has worked single-mindedly with a desire to rule over me, that knowledge makes me far more cautious, suspicious, and sceptical. Conversely, I find something deeply attractive when people who have non-political resumes and non-political competences engage the political process, like Cincinnatus, who surrendered his plough to lead his nation through crisis, after which he happily returned to his farm; he was not besotted with the love of power.

Mark was obviously not one of those skulking around angling for leadership and that is, to me, just one indicator that he will make a fine one.

Regarding immediate popularity, Golding has made it clear that he wasn’t really in that game, and you can’t hold a cricketer responsible for not scoring goals in football. Similarly, he hasn’t spent his time like so many others shape-shifting, practising to doublespeak, and frankly, acquiring political debts. The result is that he is authentic and independent, features that shine through in his recent media interviews. It terrifies the professional politicians.

And now that he has begun to project himself forward, no doubt his popularity will rise dramatically. In fact, that process is already underway. There’s a video floating around of Golding speaking, in SW St Andrew I believe. I’m in shock his handlers let him loose to give this kind of candid talk:

“See when it come to Ganja? The Reform weh wi duh to Ganja was a big move … And mi is a yute mi grow up around ganja … yeah man … ‘cause which part mi live, nuff ah de man dem bun ganja. Bun it inna spliff. Bun it inna chalice. And me deh deh ‘mongst dem … and so on”.

I wanted to hear a lot more about that “… and so on”. What did it mean? It seems … smoky. We’re left to wonder if he took a lick outa de chalwa.

ANOTHER QUESTION

That’s another question, and for another time. However that may be, Golding is known for extraordinary sharpness, enough to be a leading commercial lawyer. And now he’s turned Junglist, a post requiring more sharpness than the lawyering. And we all witnessed him captain an impressive legislative schedule as justice minister from 2011-2016. On the other side of life, he quietly continues and supports his father’s great philanthropic mission.

Stick a pin. Nowhere in the copious histories of The Rt Honourable Norman Washington Manley have I ever read that he was skulking around like a hungry wolf in search of political leadership. We learn of hard physical work, intellectual acuity, athletic prowess, chivalry in war, advancement in a challenging career, inspiration to others, and philanthropic works for the less fortunate.

This was no professional politician who sprang from the womb convinced that every other being should take the knee. No. He was admirable as a man. He was about the business of his own life and then he was, for want of a better term, ‘drafted’ into the political process. Tremendous good emerged from that drafting, even when he had to tackle and defeat the Brogad of the time, Sir Alexander Brogadstamante.

Michael Manley, too! He entered politics ‘late’. He hadn’t been sitting around hatching plans to lead us.

Well, from when he first was drafted into the process, Mark’s involvement has been good for our politics. Nobody thought he would rise so dramatically as he laboured in the vineyard. He wasn’t lean or hungry enough. Too happy with the rest of his life. Not Machiavellian enough. But now the once improbable is a real possibility, and I think it would be great for Jamaica.

– Daniel Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20201101/daniel-thwaites-gospel-mark