The PNP is in turmoil
Published:Monday | July 22, 2019 | 12:09 AM
An open letter to Mark Wignall
THE EDITOR, Sir:
I have just finished reading your article in the online edition of the Sunday Gleaner, July 21, 2019. Though we always don’t see eye to eye on Jamaican politics (which you are well aware of), I must hasten to say that I note with a high degree of seriousness your question: ‘Is Peter Bunting just an overhyped, rich-boy politician?’
That’s, basically, what, in my mind, he is, Mark – an overhyped, rich-boy politician who is on a collision course with imminent political catastrophe. What is he coming to the table with other than being an overhyped, rich-boy politician?
His leader’s shifting him from shadowing the security ministry was an indication that he was a failed security minister. As the proverbial saying goes, if it is not broken, why fix it? It remains an indisputable fact that Bunting’s performance as security minister was dismal, to say the least.
His prayers and hope for ‘divine intervention’, in lieu of actions/policies to fight the rising crime rate under his watch, were a sick joke. Question here, ‘Wiggy’, is if Comrade Bunting – and wannabe People’s National Party (PNP) president and, ultimately, prime minister – could not handle a ministry, then how will he able to handle a country?
As prime minister, will he be seeking divine intervention if his administration’s social, political, and economic policies suffer the same fate that his policies as security minister endured? The PNP is in a shambles, and we do not need an opinion poll to make that determination, and the PNP knows that, too, but Bunting is not the doctor to fix that ailment.
Mired in disarray
Politically unpopular as Peter Phillips is, he is not the lone wolf or the cancer eating away the flesh of the PNP, and as such, he should not be used as a scapegoat for the disarray in which the PNP is now mired. To cut a long story short, the PNP is facing a serious leadership vacuum, and you do recognise that, Mark. A successful race to Jamaica House for the PNP in such short order under the leadership of Bunting or Phillips after September 7, 2019, will require that divine intervention that Bunting as national security minister was hoping for as his promise and boast to curb crime and violence in Jamaica disappeared into the twilight zone.
With a year or so to go before Andrew Holness flies the gate, it will certainly take a divine intervention for Bunting (if successful in his leadership quest, which, like you, I am doubtful about) to turn the PNP’s misfortunes into fortunes.
It now appears that come 2020 or 2021, the race to Jamaica House is becoming mission impossible for the PNP, be it under the leadership of the unpopular Peter Phillips or the more unpopular, failed, former Security Minister Peter Bunting.
George Lawson