Gordon Robinson | Silly season has started early

Silly season has started early this time around which contradicts the argument that fixed election dates would result in longer campaigns.

Reactions to the latest Panderson Polls have ranged from the smugly satisfied to the dangerously delusional. For the first time in Generation Z’s memory, PNP is leading by well outside a Poll’s margin of error. This is a confirmation of the upward trend these Polls have reported for the PNP over the past year.

Dayton “Chatty Chatty” Campbell, PNP General Secretary, who, in that capacity, I must confess has been growing on me, has been cautiously content but clearly understands that complacency wouldn’t be the correct approach based on some of the results. JLP activists have gone ballistic alleging that the Poll was “rigged” and that PNP has manipulated the results to create a narrative in their favour.

This is how we know the Polls are as accurate as Polls can be. When the “losing” Party tries to discredit the Pollster without a scintilla of evidence to support their wild assertions clear thinkers discern that the Party knows the results are fair. That Party is in panic mode. If the results were truly “rigged” or “stupid” or “manipulated” the other side would simply stay quiet in their certain contrary belief and allow the Party commissioning the Poll to believe they are ahead.

The JLP doth protest too much. Methinks!

To be fair to Chatty Chatty Dayton, in the past, when the Poll results were trending the other way he never once questioned their c validity. At that time he would say he intended to use the data to restructure PNP policy and messaging. Today he’s right to be cautious. These Polls measure only popular vote. PNP ought to have learned from the Local Government Elections that this doesn’t necessarily correspond with winning. Pollsters should learn from the same results that they need to step up their game and conduct constituency by constituency polls. JLP should learn a lesson from the PNP General Secretary who seems to be maturing in the job.

JLP continues trying to win elections in the Ministry of Finance. Seaga made the same error. Repeatedly! When it comes to general elections, cabinet is (er, um) “immaterial”. General Elections are won by parties’ general secretariats. The 2020 election was the exception when COVID conspired with Rise United to help JLP thrash One PNP.

The great PNP Party of the 1970s understood this better than any since. At that time, Michael Manley created a new Ministry headed by the G.O.A.T. of Political Party Organizers, Donald Keith Duncan. That Ministry was named the Ministry of (National) Mobilization but we all knew what was really being mobilized.

JLP’s current status in the Polls is a direct result of its ill directed political focus on what ought instead to only be a national focus namely macro-economics. No issue is more clearly explanatory of the distinction between government and party. That distinction has been blurred to the point of invisibility in Jamaica. Macro-economic management is crucial to good government. It is useless as a political tool for a party seeking political office. Voters just don’t care. They neither recognize nor feel macro-economics in their daily lives.

Tom Drunk (ah ha)

But Tom no fool (and that’s a fact).

He is smart (tell ’im ’bout it brother; tell ’im ’bout it!)

playing fool (you can tell ’im one time).

Playing fool (tell’im’bout it don’t be fooled)

to catch wise (yeah, yeah, yeah!)

so use your head (and that’s a fact)

and you’ll survive (you could hear what the brother say!)

Ever since 1979 when Eddie Seaga coined the “It takes cash to care” political jingle successive JLP stalwarts have focused on the trickledown effect of good macro-economic management to garner votes. It seems they honestly believe that political catch phrase swept Seaga to victory in 1980.

It. Did. Not!

In 1980, Jamaican voters feared that Manley was leading them into Communism with his pal Fidel. THAT won the election for Seaga. Another of his catch phrases “I’m going to make money jingle in your pocket again” was much more in harmony with voters’ needs and accordingly more effective than the “it takes cash to care” drivel.

It. Does. NOT. Take. Cash. To. Care!

It takes cash to buy things. Caring requires only empathy and a willingness to do what you can to help your fellow human. If you truly care, you’ll find a way to show it whether or not you have cash.

Jesus never passed the plate. He just cared

So don’t kill the goose (no, no, no!)

that lay the golden egg (real exclusively yours I tell you)

Don’t kill the goose (and that’s for sure)

that lay the golden egg (you should never do that)

Don’t kill the goose (you should never do a thing like that)

that lay the golden egg (exactly what the brother’s got to say)

for if you do (you would be WRONG!)

you’ll have to beg (you will have to beg)

In 1971, Hopeton Lewis (of Sounds and Pressure and Take it Easy fame) wrote Tom Drunk and recorded it with Dance Hall legend and Hip Hop inspiration U-Roy (appeared on the record as “Hugh Roy”). It was recorded at Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle studios with Tommy McCook and the Supersonics as session musicians (long after the Ska-ta-lites disbanded). It was the year after Hopeton Lewis won the Festival Song competition with Boom Shaka Laka [a (Domi)No Prize if you can name his back-up vocalists credited on the record as the SPM]. Tom Drunk, the follow up, became a monster hit. It warned Jamaican leaders not to take ordinary citizens for granted.

With deft use of popular Jamaican proverbs Hopeton Lewis skillfully exposed lying and cheating leaders who act selfishly believing they will benefit personally but failing to realise that actions have consequences.

Tom may be drunk but he is no fool!

So, recent personnel changes after a tumultuous JLP Central Executive meeting won’t make a whit of difference to the Polls. The focus must be on the General Secretariat where only a political master craftsman like Daryl Vaz has the political savvy (and the cash sources) to convince the JLP base to come out next year and keep their Party in power. He’s wasted as Treasurer because his fund-raising skills don’t need an official position. The political reality is that JLP needs a Daryl Vaz as General Secretary. Any person capable of counting to ten can be Treasurer. That position’s only other qualification is integrity.

If JLP can’t recover from recent grave errors of judgment including massive self-assessed pay hikes and extremely inept parliamentary conduct it will continue to spiral downward. Recent setbacks in court followed by knee-jerk defensive reactions only make matters worse.

Macroeconomics can’t salvage JLP’s viability after its inexcusable selfishness on the micro-economic level. Macroeconomics won’t convince public transport operators to vote JLP after long overdue, inadequate rate increases were promised then subsequently withdrawn at the last minute. Macroeconomics won’t convince public servants to vote JLP after they were browbeaten into signing on the dotted line for “restructured” salaries that often became pay cuts in real terms while political leaders voted themselves huge increases.

Macroeconomics won’t wipe the shame out of Valrie Curtis’ eye or convince other public servants that they are not in danger of similar bully riding tactics. Macroeconomics won’t convince a JLP base facing weekly inflation well above official numbers and unable even to stretch one pay cheque to last until the next to leave their homes on election day to help highly paid, inflation invulnerable leaders to continue to draw down hefty salaries.

Macro economics are good for corporate political donors. Not so much for the average Jamaican working in transport; at call centres; as security guards; in fast food establishments; or even in the civil service as junior doctors, nurses or teachers. To them macro economics is just another word used by the big man to trick them into voting.

Unless JLP urgently restructures its General Secretariat; redesigns its messaging and its mobilisation programmes, it can kiss Jamaica House goodbye.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com