JLP crisis, PNP opportunity?

Ian Boyne, Contributor

On the weekend that it meets for its annual conference, the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) could not have it better. The governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) continues to attract unfavourable media attention, with the latest fallout being the Golding-Brady brawl over the latter's status in the party, and his involvement in the messy Manatt, Phelps and Phillips issue.

With the PNP's riding the issue of the prime minister's credibility and trustworthiness, this latest episode in the Christopher 'Dudus' Coke extradition drama adds the kind of suspense that the PNP needs to keep public interest in this saga. It does not hurt the PNP for the perception to deepen that the prime minister keeps his distance from the truth and that we cannot take him at his word.

Though, in fairness to the PNP, they have not contributed one bit or iota to this latest in the series, and have been deafeningly silent all week about the latest eruption. The prime minister started the week with an interview produced and packaged by the state-run Jamaica Information Service (JIS). While it commanded widespread media focus, the PNP refused to give it any attention or to offer any critique, and when party chairman Robert Pickersgill was asked about it at a press conference the following day, he shrugged it off and said, after seeing a few minutes of it, he turned it off out for boredom for it was the same old lines being trotted out all over again.

Escaped unscathed

Others were less charitable. The JIS had billed its interview as 'A Conversation with the Prime Minister', but what many wanted was a confrontation with the prime minister! They were fuming that the prime minister was not punched up verbally and bruised mortally, and that no blood was drawn. It was the interviewer who did not escape unscathed for allegedly letting the prime minister off the hook and not tripping him up. But the time was to come just two days after when the prime minister would face the free, uninhibited, aggressive and blood-thirsty press.

The Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) had requested that the prime minister face the press, the Fourth Estate, on the troubling Coke extradition issue and be grilled by journalists. The prime minister accepted. Invitations by the PAJ went out to some of the country's most fiery journalists and commentators.

In all of the excitement that has gripped the media and public attention over the claims and counter-claims regarding Brady's JLP membership and his service on Government boards, people have missed the most noteworthy fact: Golding faced the fierce, independent media, opened himself up to his critics, who have been acerbically and savagely vocal over these many months, and it turned that after all the flame and fury, the most newsworthy thing to have emerged is a wrangling over whether Brady is technically still a member of the JLP! Amazing!

Deeper issues

Is that all the independent, bold, hard-hitting, sock-it-to-you media could pry from Golding in nearly 75 minutes of questioning? Is he so clever at hiding the truth that no one could trip him up? (You don't need many questions or follow-ups to do that, incidentally, colleagues.) After all the baiting, huffing and puffing for nearly a year, is the only thing worth discussing from his encounter with the independent press whether Brady is still a bona fide JLP member?

This is not to say my colleagues did poorly. Dionne Jackson-Miller would have made her colleagues at any of the elite media organisations internationally proud. She questioned Golding as though he were in the docks. Gleaner reporter Arthur Hall, one of our finest reporters, who the prime minister knows from their off-the-record Vale Royal meetings, is not afraid to speak to him bluntly, did not disappoint. Young Archibald Gordon asked an excellent question about sacrificing principle for pressure. Others probed, too.

Respected Observer columnist Claude Robinson, unfortunately, was away and did not make it, and I do not know why Cliff Hughes, Emily Crooks or Mark Wignall did not make it, though they were on the PAJ's invitation list. They would have added much of value to the encounter, but the opportunity was provided.

If I were the prime minister and my accusers had the opportunity, given by me, to face me and embarrass me, and I came away with only a row over who paid his dues on time, I would be pouring champagne! The PNP's Julian Robinson put it well on Cliff Hughes' Impact on Thursday night. When Cliff was saying, in his usual dramatic way, "this is a gift to the PNP," Julian casually dismissed it, saying, "we have serious issues to discuss and all we can talk about is whether Mr Brady is still a member of the JLP?"

I keep telling cynics who are dismissing the possibility of reform from within our two traditional parties that they should carefully observe the PNP. Analyse the PNP, especially over the last year, a crucial period in our history, and if you don't see any level of maturity, sobriety and sophistication in the PNP, then you should leave political analysis alone.

The PNP's behaviour last week - its silence and retreat from the daily press releases, despite many temptations - speaks volumes. Of course, they are probably saving it all up for today at conference, but we understand the demands of that arena.

Lying or misinformed?

But outside of that arena, let's take a rational look at what has been billed as the biggest news of the week. Golding said Harold Brady was not a member of the party and that he had been asked to resign from all Government boards. Was this 'another example' of Golding's lying or was he misinformed? Now, you might want to draw all kinds of conclusions if we take the more benign view that he was simply misinformed, but there is a significant difference between the two - especially when the narrative of his critics is that he is an incorrigible liar.

Lloyd B Smith, who everybody who listens to talk shows and reads his Observer columns knows, is no fan of Bruce Golding - but who took the effort to leave Montego Bay to attend Golding's press conference - told Cliff Hughes on radio: "I observed his (Golding's) body language and his expressions and I could see that he really believed what he was saying when he said Brady was not a member of the JLP".

Do you really believe Golding is so foolish or hopelessly untruthful to say something which he knows can be immediately contradicted and proven to be false by a man known to be angry, and without any reason to be loyal to the JLP?

By Thursday, the party did confirm that Golding had, in fact, asked that Brady be removed from Government boards, and that the transport minister was told to remove him from his one remaining board appointment which was the Jamaica Railway Corporation.

That Mike Henry waited for Brady to resign, for other reasons, does not negate the fact that Golding did ask that something be done vis-a-vis Brady over the Manatt issue. Ah, that might raise other matters such as what should be done about the attorney general and the solicitor general. These are legitimate issues as The Gleaner has raised in its editorials. But don't let that overshadow the instant issue, which is that the PM was responding to a question about what he was doing about Brady.

Not a pivotal issue

If I remember it correctly, it was in the context of being asked what he was doing about Brady that the prime minister mentioned that Brady was no longer a member of the party (and, therefore, presumably could not be punished by the party) nor was he a member of any Government board and, therefore, could not be removed from any (instructions were already given for him to be removed).

The Gleaner editorial, therefore, which said that, "The implication, we suggest, was that Mr Brady was either forced to resign or expelled from the JLP as punishment for having gone beyond the scope of his party leader's directives ... ", was not an accurate reflection of the context of the prime minister's statement on Brady, from my recollection.

I believe that while the PNP would have to rinse something from this whole Coke extradition-Manatt issue, that party leader Portia Simpson Miller will deliver a significant presentation. People underestimate her. Don't. Portia understands that Jamaicans want more than Golding-bashing today. She knows that many are cynical about the PNP too, and that many have misgivings about its 18-year stewardship of the economy.

She knows there is a growing, no-better-herring-no-better-barrel view. She knows that many are taking a plague-on-both-your-houses view. She knows, too, that while the media have been lashing Golding, that they are not just waiting with wide, open arms to embrace the PNP - especially one led by her. She knows the ruling class in this country are sceptical about her. Portia knows what she is up against. And she knows what she has to deliver today.

That is why she will engage in more than just histrionics today. There will be some of that, of course, for the Comrades will demand no less. But she will be seeking to reach middle Jamaica, that broad constituency which has not sold its soul to any party, that broad constituency which has not dumped reason for emotionalism.

Portia is helped considerably by the fact that though it was reported last week that crime was down significantly for the third straight month; that inflation has gone down for the second straight month, interest rates are at a 32-year low and our dollar is no longer under pressure; all that has been Coked out. The country is ready to listen to alternatives, Portia.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.