http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20061001/focus/focus1.html
Published: Sunday | October 1, 2006

Portia Simpson Miller proved again last weekend that she is our most inspirational Prime Minister since Michael Manley. 'Sista P' not only brought out the largest PNP conference crowd since Joshua's halcyon days.

If the real test of a speaker is holding the audience's attention, Mrs. Simpson Miller delivered in spades. Few listeners left their seats during her hour and a half oration, and many were moved to tears.

She also appeared confident and in command of the facts, highlighting the achievements of her ministers. Her tour de force reminded us all just why 'Mama P' remains by far the most popular politician in the land.

One emotional highlight was her 'never again' condemnation of the vicious politics of the past. Opposition Leader Bruce Golding has also made many similar denunciations. So when are they going to put their money where their mouths are?

Promise to stroll hand in hand

Both promised in the budget debates to stroll hand in hand through troubled constituencies so warring supporters can see with their own eyes that their leaders in no way share their murderous animosity.

You've talked the talk Bruce and Portia. Now walk the walk. Nip the growing south-east and west Central St. Andrew disturbances in the bud, and set the tone for your parties' candidates and followers. Or are your fine words just more political hypocrisy?

The PNP truly delivered a 'mother of all conferences' that rallied the faithful and projected energy and unity across the national screen. A few killjoys wondered if all those yellow shirts amid the usual sea of orange were not so subtle signs of disunity, especially after former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson's call for 'One Party, One Colour'. And some Cassandras pondered Mr. Patterson's comments that 'things no look pretty' in some constituencies and that some current candidates would have to be replaced.

But most comrades ignored these clouds and jubilantly compared their 2006 conference to that of 1976, which according to Arnold Bertram (The Gleaner, March 5, 2006) "had to be moved from the arena to the stadium because of the size of the crowd. The vast crowd remained in the sun to the very end to hear their leader and to acclaim [Michael Manley] as their 'Joshua'."

Until last weekend, the JLP were in my book slight favourites to win a general election called this year. The Don Anderson poll - easily the most accurate in 2002 - has both parties neck and neck. But having come from behind to join the front-running PNP, Labour appeared poised to move in front. However, Portia gave the comrades new momentum on Sunday, and it now seems anyone's race. Though only she knows when the election trumpet will sound.

The front page feature of Mrs. Simpson Miller's presentation was a Cricket World Cup beautification project to be funded by the Venezuelan PetroCaribe oil facility loan. Yet, even ignoring equipment costs, 12,000 people employed for 6 months on a $635 million budget means $2,035 a week or $407 a day - which is less than minimum wage and barely taxi fare and lunch money. To say 'details are still being worked out' smacks of half-baked planning. Surely spending roughly US$10 million - as our police, nurses and teachers would agree - requires serious thought?

Vote-buying programmes

One radio host railed angrily at the recurring stupidity of bare-faced, vote-buying crash programmes that waste resources while doing nothing to alleviate poverty in the long term. What were the permanent national benefits of, say, 'Lift Up Jamaica'? Did even a single participant acquire any new skill or a permanent job? I heard another gentleman scornfully remark, "It's like someone with a big bank loan to service winning the lottery and using the money to pretty up his lawn!"

Indeed, a recent IMF report recommended that the low interest PetroCaribe funds be used to pay down more expensive loans. Jamaica, after all, has one of the world's worst debt to income ratios. And blowing borrowed money on planting flowers is not a signal of fiscal discipline.

(Incidentally, while you don't look gift horses in the mouth and thanks for the cheap money Hugo, Venezuela's Chavez brings to mind the phrase 'a fool and his money are soon parted'. If oil goes below $50 a barrel, how long before his angry countrymen turf him out for squandering their oil windfall?)

The Government's recent cavalier dipping into NHT and NIS funds concerns many. Now it seems to have forgotten that PetroCaribe is not a grant but a loan that must be eventually repaid. Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Thrice is a pattern. These proliferating short-term redistribution programmes, at the expense of long-term planning and growth, make some wonder if 2006 is 1976 redux in more ways than one.

Arnold Bertram, a 'been there and done that' former PNP minister who should know whereof he speaks, was very articulate on the 1976 and after experience in the May 14, 2006 Gleaner.

"There is a limit, however, to the welfare programmes that an administration up to its neck in debt and presiding over an uncompetitive economy can sustain. Were this not so, Michael Manley would have eradicated poverty long ago. It is unlikely that any other Prime Minister will ever come close to equaling his record of redistributing the country's wealth to the poor. The platform which won for the PNP a landslide victory in the [1976] election - simultaneously eroded the party's social base - by February 1977 the country was in the grip of an intractable economic crisis, and the debacle of 1980 was just around the corner.

The poor who suffer most

"While it is possible to win elections by mobilising the poor on the basis of programmes which promise an eternity of welfare, the price you pay is the racial and class division which inevitably follows along with a fall-off in investment. In the end, it is the poor who suffer most, for their lot can only be improved in a growing economy which gives them opportunity and training."

In the run-up to the 2002 General Election, Finance Minister Omar Davies - as he later admitted publicly - let his comrades 'run with it' to try and ensure a PNP victory. His budget-busting election goodies gave us three consecutive years of double digit inflation - after six straight single digit years - and still sky-high interest rates that keep stifling new investment. But the PNP, if only just, won a historic fourth straight term.

Are we heading down the same path again, only more so?

Will Portia Simpson Miller and Omar Davies, as it seems increasingly possible, draw the all out populism card to try and win a fifth term? I wonder what that former Minister of National Mobilisation and now back in action constituency candidate D.K. Duncan will advise.

(By coincidence I just came across this quote from They Call Me Teacher: The Life and Times of Sir Howard Cooke - "D.K. Duncan drew no particular difference between his role as general secretary of the PNP and as Minister of National Mobilisation ... I felt you should never mix the two [party and government], but Michael Manley did not like to be told no.")

The Jamaican electorate always has the final say. And for all Mr. Bertram's wise sounding words above, Michael 'King of the Crash Programmes' Manley, remains easily the most popular Prime Minister this country has known. Was he a genius at 'fooling up' voters, or just skilled at giving the people what they want? Well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.