Mark Wignall | This could really hurt the JLP, PNP

Until a poll from a reputed entity is published, most of us find that we are guessing and whistling in the wind over the local government elections. We have no idea if the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) will retain the political council seats, or the opposition People’s National Party (PNP) will eat them up.

Both the ruling JLP and the opposition PNP have their strengths and weaknesses that are likely to show up as we head to the end of February.

The big one facing the ruling JLP is that its economic successes, like previous JLP administrations, have too long a lag time between measured metrics and real effect among the people.

In addition, when the JLP government openly advertises and shouts out its economic success, it tells the people, especially civil servants, that the central bank is bloated with funds and, therefore, open to raids on salary and benefits items..

Certainly in any economic system, the metrics that are published must have some direct bearing on the lives of those who most desire assistance. I am not a economist but, if the growth and development numbers identified and eventually published are impressive, that same observation must be recorded among many of our most vulnerable people.

In other words, if the former is derived from study among the latter, surely there must be realities which mesh with the published economic metrics.

The PNP cannot, by any approaches to logic, or even emotion, run its political campaign on any claim that it can do better on the economy. It matters little whether the economic positives happening now are the results of a relay race from Bruce Golding to Peter Phillips to Andrew Holness. Timing gives Andrew Holness the power of NOW.

And in that NOW, because he can show someone like Nigel Clarke as the link to harnessing those positives and the right to boast now, he exalts himself and dares Mark Golding to do the same.

Thus, the PNP is trapped in that it cannot even make the case among its raw base that it can design a policy to put more dollars in their pockets. And that is what I see as one of the PNP’s weaknesses. That great unknown.

I have been having a fight inside my brain over deciding how best I should make a comparison between Mark Golding and Andrew Holness.

One well-known businessman said to me recently. “A horrible mismatch. Golding hasn’t found it yet.”

WHICH PARTY IS MORE FIRED UP?

I was out on the road on Nomination Day. I must confess that because, for the last 8 years, I have developed more JLP voting tendencies than PNP, I wanted to see PNP supporters in a state that could tell me they were preparing themselves for an electoral backsiding.

That wasn’t so. They were energised as if they were smelling something, sensing a seismic shift in the JLP versus PNP contest.

“What is your party’s strongest point going into the next elections?” I asked the PNP lady.

“Wi love people. Wi nuh tief poor people money.”

Something inside of me has not been allowing me to see PNP President Mark Golding as having the political chops to win the locals.

“Why is your leader Mark Golding better than Andrew Holness?” His activism in his mid-20s made him a stand out among those in the bar.

“Golding have a heart,” he said. “Holness nuh have none.”

“What yu mean by dat?” I asked.

“Di prime minister look after him big man fren dem, den him look afta himself. Him nuh care bout we.”

DID SEAGA GIVE HIM A SHOUT OUT?

I was impressed. The picture of Prime Minister Andrew Holness skilfully blending the bare political approach with economic facts demanded by a political campaign. If one is skilled.

He pointed out that those in the business of tickling the ears of the people and promising them the nirvana of their dreams are charlatans. In other words, don’t buy into the promises of the PNP.

The PM told us that the delivery of many items that the people craved and, in fact, were entitled to, cannot be delivered unless the broad economy grew. Which is basically a social and granular refinement of Seaga’s situational mantra, ‘It takes cash to care’.

I cannot say if the PM stated it because he was feeling political pressure over the possibility that he could lose the locals, or he was so damn sure of JLP strength that he simply unloaded on the nation by stating an inconvenient truth.

IS THERE A STALL ON GOVERNING?

It is almost a year now since those who make up the Government awarded themselves gargantuan increases in salary.

While I have long supported the notion of paying our politicians healthy salaries, there must come with those realities significant sanctions for breaching performance standards.

One reader emailed me, “ My observation is that in general there is no real serious legislation being done by the current administration. There is a lack of vision. There also seems to be a lack of knowledge in crafting important legislation. We are already in February and I have yet to hear what the legislative priorities are of the current administration. What I hear too much about is the IC reports to Parliament not being released by the Speaker of the House. Jamaica has too many critical needs for the current administration to be focused on not releasing IC reports to Parliament.”

With an election coming up, there is road patching to do by the JLP administration while the opposition PNP is shivering in anticipation that it can get its chance of running the road patching budget sometime later in this year.

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