Mark Wignall | The Holness magic may have fizzled out

With two polls indicating that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) would have pipped the People’s National Party (PNP) and yet both indicate that it would happen within the safe space of the sample margin of error favouring the party which limped in, in a most unimpressive manner is somewhat rare.

Some explanation. One poll indicating that the JLP would win by a whisker but via the sample margin of error it could go either to the JLP or the PNP is understood. The likely result would be either the JLP, the PNP, or a theoretical tie. But the PNP walks out in front in actuality. That, too, is quite understandable.

If the other poll is showing the same picture, and the actual result again favours the PNP, that mathematical bit of rarity enters the picture. In both instances, the sample margin of error in the results favours the PNP.

The PNP, under the leadership of Mark Golding, has been campaigning for about the last two years. About six weeks ago, the plan by the JLP was to ‘unleash the magic of Holness’ on the electorate in the last two weeks of the election campaign. The political gurus in the party somehow had read that the PM was still very much in possession of the magic that handed him the Jamaican electorate on a platter.

That reading needed some solid input from my old friend ‘Mutraman’, a well known Obeah man from Yallahs who operated in the mid-1980s.

One of the longstanding political veterans in the JLP said to me as quite unimpressive numbers from the slow-poke Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) were coming in for the JLP on the evening of February 26: “It’s time for a reset. Hard to say it, but it’s the truth. We are doing too much good governance and not enough politics. The people hear of the growth in the economy, but it is not reaching them.”

Which begs the question: What is good governance? Certainly it must be all about keeping the roof of the house intact, the doors and windows secured while the kitchen cupboard is fairly well stocked.

More than a few PNP administrations of the past have concentrated on trying to keep the kitchen cupboard fairly well stocked while the roof has been prone to leaks and rats living in the rafters. What is that magic balancing, socioeconomic state that leads to the most viable existence for the majority of our people.

In the late 1980s when Eddie Seaga’s JLP administration was turning around the economy, which had been battered by Manley’s experimentation of the 1970s, the country was recording impressive levels of growth even as development eluded us. The people voted out Seaga because the growth levels were floating over the heads of the people.

It is a fact that Jamaica has recorded fiscal pluses that were once foreign to us. Certainly, we cannot afford to hitch a reverse gear on that while creating a micro-economy that fuels the stocking of the kitchen cupboard.

MR WARMINGTON, THANKS FOR YOUR ABSENCE

“I’m the minister of works. I’m the member of parliament, no PNP councillor going spend my money.”

It is not a surprise that some politicians lose their minds at election time. With Warmington, a highly successful political contestant in St Catherine South West, he tends to froth and foam more than most. He has always believed that he bosses his constituents, and over many years, he has been able to convince them that they ought to be comfortable with his bullying ways.

The usual releases have been issued. He met with the prime minister. They spoke with each other. He then resigned. In real-talk that means he was fired. If you have not researched it, Warmington has a CD. The PM would have taken note of that. You can’t just dash out and dash whey a man with a national honour. He must be afforded the decency of claiming that he resigned.

And we know that decency is not a thing that Mr Warmington has spent much time embracing.

MR MEADOWS DESTROYED HIS POLITICAL FUTURE

Again, the heady brew of political campaigning. Most likely in a state of deeply relishing the impressive numbers coming in for the PNP from the EOJ, Mr Meadows jumped off into the deep end of the political lake.

On a political campaign and in PNP party colours, the highly educated and probably intelligent politician spouted off and made the most asinine and dangerously stupid statement he could ever make.

He said he knew ‘choppers’ - that is lottery scammers - and, horror of horrors, he was, basically, endorsing the illicit, illegal, and dangerous activity. He told the choppers who were listening that the white man had extracted much from black Africans who were abducted in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and taken here. He stated that in chopping, somehow the Jamaicans were justified in seeking and securing payback. And, seemingly, as their mentor, he was advising them to spend the filthy lucre wisely.

At its most granular, lottery scamming involves the generating of documents called lead lists. One lead list may have, say, 2,000 names and contact numbers of Americans, most of whom are quite aged and socially vulnerable people sitting on nest eggs of considerable sums.

The lists are created abroad and the local scammers have to purchase these lists. That is where the real scamming starts. If the local boys hit, say, five per cent of those on the list and each hit extracts US$20,000 to $50,000, the amount of money made is embarrassingly nuff nuff.

Where a pile of money is, many are those who want it. And so the guns are attached to the choppers, especially when other choppers want your list.

Choppers usually contribute to the political campaigns of selected politicians. The choppers need the politicians for cover if rogue elements, like corrupt cops and other choppers, are putting them under pressure.

Mr Meadows has pressed the brakes on his political career. It is finished. Done with. Kaput. And in truth, I had high hopes for him.

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