Mark Wignall | Is Mark Golding up for it?

The power game of politics reaches its peak when both parties campaign intensely for governmental control. We are now in the middle of that campaign. Over the next few weeks, the tempo will increase.

Holness wants to etch his name in a slice of the country’s political history. The first Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader to make it three straight electoral wins. Opposition Leader Mark Golding is an extremely competent leader. He knows which policy buttons to touch and how to manage his errors on the stump. It seems to me, though, that he would have some difficulty measuring what his supporters want him to be.

Should he be the wise leader taking charge of the late-afternoon discussion or more like the kitchen man bunning him finger over roast corn. Prime Minister Holness has been around political leadership to the point where the JLP has held on to a bigger share of the political base, wresting it from the People’s National Party (PNP) over the last two cycles of elections. He is well known by those who love him and has earned a significant number of detractors in the last two years.

The prize in this intense contest is the people. Their minds and thoughts. If the JLP wins the Local Governmental elections, the certainty extends to about 90 per cent that the JLP will win the general election. Should that happen, the political long knives would make it quite unpleasant for Golding to stay on as PNP President.

In the United States, their economic recovery is number one among the G7 nations. Jobs and wage growth, business formation, etc. The best job market since the 1960s. And yet Biden’s best poll numbers have him tied with the misfit - Trump.

It is fair to say that the PNP does not itself have a political résumé that can put the JLP’s economic performance to shame. The best that the PNP can grab at is to state that it is baton-passing on fiscal invigilation by the IMF that is now empowering Holness and his rock star finance minister, Dr Nigel Clarke, to so openly boast about the directions of the economy.

None of the opinion polls have indicated that Holness and the JLP are in safe, unassailable, electoral territory. The findings for the PNP are about the same. But a point of separation between the JLP and the PNP is that Holness is a known factor, political boils and all, while Golding is a well-known guesstimate.

Perceptions about Golding’s personality, his political warmth, will contend with some who see his big-boss attitude as a turnoff.

One of the factors that showed up in polling during the campaign in 1997 were people saying that Patterson deserved another chance. Of course, the unlikeability of the JLP’s Seaga was part of that political echo chamber as P. J. won.

That ‘deserve another chance’ is what the PR scriptwriters/choreographers should use to take the JLP first past the post in the local and a big skip in the line for when the bells toll for the general. Taming the crime monster may not be a realistic objective for Mr Holness and his team. So words sweetened with honey will have to do.

SOE HURT POOR AND SMALL BUSINESSES

According to my ex-policeman friend, when the Island Special Constabulary Force was disbanded and absorbed, it was the right decision because they were already doing regular policing.

“In the highly controversial SOE in 1976 about a thousand reservists in the army were called out. Many of those reservists were later absorbed in the army. What happens in Jamaica is that because no new reserve police force was ever formed, the main security forces have no extra ‘boots on the ground.”

A place like Portmore Pines is ‘filled with police’ and people like those who live in Gregory Park shop there and go home. But in Gregory Park, an area of many poor people, the little shop and house bar are under lockdown. In essence, business booms during the SOE for the big players in places like Portmore Pines, and the poor and his little hustle in places like Gregory Park must suffer.

“Over the Christmas, I see poor people buy dem likkle ting,” a woman said to me. “But what happen, the hair dresser can’t get no business because people in her area couldn’t come out. People want put out dem stuff fi sell, but because dem under lockdown nutten nuh sell. All some vegetable and fruit spoil.”

“The policeman came around here and shut down the place. I said to him ,what about these poor people? Do you know how they live?” said an elder in Portmore. “They buy stuff in downtown Kingston so that their neighbours don’t have to go there. They have no business. What must they do?”

HORRIBLE ROADS IN WEST GREAT HOUSE CIRCLE

I have a friend who lives on Great House Circle. Each time I drive to her house I believe that my car is at ‘thoughts and prayers’ stage. Now I know writing about bad roads in Jamaica is a boring matter. Simply because the road looks as if it was deliberately dug up by heavy machinery which then drove away and left it in that horrible state.

And then they moved in the dynamite to finish the job.

People living there, like on many other roads in that area, jog in the mornings. That is now severely curtailed. It’s more suited for rock climbing. Isn’t the road/constituency in the hands of Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke? Or, if it’s not, we can pretend because it is my understanding that Finance Minister Clarke is the best political horsetrader in the JLP.

So Dr Clarke, work your magic with the NWA. Quick, sir before they send back the machines with bigger ripping buckets.

Mark Wignall is a political and public affairs analyst. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.