When Bruce goes - Prince Andrew eyes the throne

His Star Boy performance during the Manatt drama series, with memorable lines such as "pathologically mendacious" and "pack your bags and go", in reference to Prime Minister Bruce Golding, and his subsequent reality TV roadshows and appearances, have helped to no small degree, in giving him his wish: Golding has, indeed, packed his bags and is going, despite entreaties. Mr Knight might rue the day he won this case. His efforts to help his friends have a way of backfiring.

The Knight in shining armour might be intercepted by a much younger Prince Charming ready to take the hearts of the courted. Everything seemed on track for the People's National Party (PNP) to take the next general election. In the minds of PNP strategists, their greatest weapon was Bruce Golding himself. Even if economic growth was sustained and our unemployment rate were cut in the run-up to the elections, the issue of trust, credibility and integrity would be exploited by the PNP in an effort to demolish any chance of the JLP's winning.

K.D. Knight has helped to destroy his party's weapon of mass destruction. And he has helped to unleash energy, an excitement, a hope; a promise of something new and really different at the prospect of the JLP's electing the affable, amiable and suave 39-year-old Minister of Education Andrew Holness. K.D. has helped to breathe new life into the JLP.

Because he, like many others, don't really understand Bruce Golding, and the worst thing you can do in a battle is to underestimate the opponent. K.D. and the PNP need to study Sun Tzu's classic The Art of War. You can never take the chance of believing your own propaganda about your enemy. Golding is not power-obsessed and narcissistic as some other political leaders. He does not have a messianic complex.

He does not believe the universe revolves around him. Nor is he delusional or afraid to face the truth of how he is really perceived. The view that he would stick around to the bitter end for the sake of power, even if it risked a JLP loss, was a serious miscalculation of Bruce Golding.

Anyone who knows Bruce Golding will tell you he prefers you to tell him truths unfavourable to him than to feign loyalty or tell him what you think he wants to hear. I have always felt comfortable to disagree with him, privately or publicly, without any fear of victimisation. I have written before that Golding is at heart a democrat. He believes in reason, deliberation, give-and-take democratic engagement. He is always sensitive to public sentiments. I am sure there are only a tiny few who would agree with me on this.

becoming uncomfortable

Whatever you want to say about Bruce Golding, you have to admit that you can think of leaders who would hang on, even when they had no doubt that everyone wanted them to go. And if you know your politics, you would know - and the PNP knows - that no faction in the JLP was powerful enough to force him to go before he wanted to. It is clear that things were becoming uncomfortable to him, as he reportedly said, but power-hungry leaders can endure those inconveniences and hang on. I know it is not in style to say anything good about Bruce Golding but please forgive me.

Will the JLP disintegrate into warring factions, or will they be able to collectively crown a new leader? Though we in media, with ritual regularity, like to deny it, we are highly influential in framing issues and crowning kings. We will play a significant role in who is chosen to lead the JLP. The JLP leadership, delegates and the moneyed classes will be watching to see who is getting the favourability ratings and whose name is being touted most. And there are the scientific polls which we in media have been reciting that show that Andrew Holness is way ahead of other potential successors to Golding.

But Audley Shaw is a formidable potential candidate. He has been an intensely ambitious but rather unlucky man. Despite the fact that he probably did more than any other JLP leader to provoke revulsion against the PNP and its alleged corruption and mismanagement, and that he was a fierce critic of Omar Davies' stewardship of the economy, he is yet to fulfil what seems his ambition to become prime minister.

Just when it was likely that he could be the successor to Edward Seaga, or certainly the strongest contender apart from Ken Baugh, Bruce Golding made his fateful decision to return to the JLP. If Bruce had just kept his darn place in the National Democratic Movement (NDM), Audley might have been leader of the JLP and prime minister and there would have been no Dudus crisis and Manatt.

Then now when things could come his way, there is this excitement over young blood and the need to pressure the PNP and its aged leadership. Ah, boy. But Audley is a fighter. You can't write him off. I know him as one of the most astute and strategically brilliant political strategists. Audley knows how to play his cards. And he knows the importance of media and marketing. Don't think Andrew is any more adept in using PR than Audley, when he thinks he needs it. Notice he did not even wait to return to the island before he distanced himself from that Brady Bunch meeting last Sunday.

Unreliable, overly flexible

And Audley is favoured by some powerful people in this country. The only problem with these powerful people, though, is that they are unreliable and overly flexible. They will move their money to whomever they feel will be the winner. But Audley is not unmarketable. It's matter of framing, of communications strategy.

Don't believe the PNP is going to roll over and die. Just as the PNP will devise strategies to deal with the youth factor, so Audley's team can frame issues to show why experience and results are more important than age. Audley and his team can point to the delicateness of our relations with the International Monetary Fund, the fragility of the global economy, the tenuousness of our own recovery and the need to build on our macroeconomic harmony as critical reasons why he is needed as the head of the Cabinet. Perhaps Andrew's team will say, "That's why you are best left in Finance!" But then he could counter that he can hold both portfolios. It's all about framing, marking and strategic communications.

Chris Tufton is not likely to throw his hat in the ring. Chris realises his relative inexperience and his baggage as an NDM-ite. Besides, some see him as too close to Golding. It's likely to be a two-horse race. Bobby Montague might well throw his weight behind Holness, adding his enormous and incalculable organisational skills.

Bobby would have a great deal of image-building to do if he decides to run, and I am not sure he has enough time. Those who are expecting a knockdown fight in the JLP might be surprised. If the JLP leaders are thinking, they would realise that they have been given a life jacket, and they had better use it wisely. They don't have much room for error. Any bitter, fractious fight can only be benefit the PNP. That might produce even better footage than Manatt.

The JLP now has to think collective survival. Its electoral chances have improved considerably now that Golding is not there to be kicked around. Better to back someone who is more likely to attract independent votes and pro-PNP people than to back your friend and favourite who cannot cross it. Any fractiousness, bitter disputes, charges and countercharges will play into general perceptions of a party that is perpetually at war. That is not the kind of party we want to elect.

Portia and Peter are smiling for the cameras and are saying the right things. The people in the JLP, despite what they feel about one another, have to do the same. It's called political survival. The vacancy created in the leadership of the JLP presents an opportunity for renewal in the Jamaican political project. For one, people are hoping again. A new excitement has come to the political process.

This is an opportunity for the PNP to go back to its core ideas. The PNP must show that politics is not a beauty contest. It is not about who has a nice personality and who has the best smile. It is about whose ideas can advance this country, whose economic and social strategies can take us out of our mess. Portia, Peter, Bobby, Omar and that whole leadership of the PNP will suddenly seem outdated, irrelevant to many who will be adopting the mantra, "These old people should pack their bags and go. They must follow Bruce. We waan get rid of the whole of that bunch from that past." This is the sentiment which is building and gaining traction.

truly progressive agenda

The PNP must successfully tackle this repulsive ageist nonsense. It is not about age. Youthfulness and mental agility are not synonymous. To counter any superficiality around age and Mr Nice Guy image, the PNP can't simply sell Portia because of her personality and niceness. So the PNP must focus on a truly progressive agenda. Ideas such as those contained in JEEP and AVIS must be pushed and marketed properly. Let's debate ideas, strategies, policies. The PNP will be forced to do so, as the supeficiality of 'age = new ideas' gains psychological currency.

But if Andrew Holness is elected and he makes Portia's mistake of waiting for the shine to wear off and for the euphoria to abate; if he waits until the reality of continued joblessness and economic displacement sinks in, this window of opportunity would be wasted.

I end with a quote from that ancient Chinese philosopher, Sun Tzu: "The victorious army is victorious first and seeks battle later; the defeated army does battle first and seeks victory later."

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and ianboyne1@yahoo.com.