Cedric Wilson, ContributorPORTIA SIMPSON Miller's 237 votes triumph on February 25 in the People's National Party (PNP) presidential election was a cruel blow to Dr. Peter Phillips who crossed the finishing line immediately behind her with 1,538 votes.
From day one, very few people thought that Dr. Karl Blythe had a chance. Surely, he is a man that is admired at the PNP grassroots, but that kind of goodwill does not necessarily translate to endorsement for the party's top job. He was, therefore, shrewd to have adopted a low-budget strategy in his bid for party president.
In contrast to Blythe's approach, Dr. Omar Davies with the backing of certain sectors within the business community pumped considerable amounts of money into his 'Campaign for Prosperity'.
But, despite his well-oiled political machinery and an impressive hi-tech orientation, his campaign was bereft of the required broad-base appeal to propel him to the front. Even without knowing the actual expenditure for each of the four candidates, it is evident that Dr. Blythe, with 204 votes, ran the most cost-effective campaign. Dr. Davies who ended the race with 283 votes, secured the unenviable position of having the least cost-effective operation.
Nevertheless, neither of these two candidates occupied the extremes of the emotional spectrum when the results were announced and as such, have stirred very little interest since.
At opposite poles of the emotional spectrum were Dr. Peter Phillips and Mrs. Simpson Miller. No doubt much more than a few tears were shed in Phillips' 'Solid as a Rock' camp while the victorious 'Team Portia' had every right to celebrate in a jubilant mocking last laugh.
WHY DID PHILLIPS LOSE?
But now that the thunder of the race has subsided and the furious dust of competition has fallen there are two questions that must be asked. One is, given all the enormous political assets he possessed, why did Dr. Phillips lose? The other is having lost, why was Phillips' 'Solid as a Rock' team surprised?
Dr. Phillips is arguably the minister who has accomplished the most during the current PNP regime. As Minister of Health, he spearheaded a number of reforms, creating the framework for a more effective delivery of public health services within the context of severely limited resources.
His dynamism within the Ministry of Transportation and Works saw the replacement of a chaotic and dangerous city transportation system with one that has restored a measure of civility to urban life. In addition, he presided over the widening of a number of critical thoroughfares, easing some of the frustrating peak-hour traffic snarls encountered in Kingston and St. Andrew.
Certainly, there is truth in the adage 'the reward for good work is more work'.
When the country's crime rate began to spiral out of control, the Prime Minister entrusted to him the job of bringing it back in check. Here the results have been slow in coming and inevitably he has been the target of blame.
Yet, nobody who is honest would suggest that any effective crime-fighting strategy can be short term in nature. He has, nonetheless, shown laudable tenacity and an unwillingness to yield to the lawless rabble that creates mayhem when the weight of the law falls on its benefactors. And indeed, in recent months incremental progress has been made on the crime front.
Dr. Phillips spent several years as a lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, and embraced the Rastafarian faith at one point in his spiritual sojourn. The profile that emerges for his presidential candidacy is that of a person who has an appreciation for the intricacies and diversity of the Jamaican experience a man of action who is well-equipped intellectually.
On the other hand, Mrs. Simpson Miller has less to boast about. While she is seen as a worker, her impact on the ministries (tourism, local government to name a few) she has headed has been less dramatic. Academically, her accomplishment falls far short of her male rivals.
If Phillips' and Simpson Miller's credentials were laid side by side and an impartial visitor from a distant galaxy was responsible for deciding the PNP president, Phillips undoubtedly would have got the nod. However, Mrs. Simpson Miller took to her campaign a deep understanding of masses garnered from years of working her way up through the ranks of the party as well spontaneity with the crowd and a natural magnetism to which the average Jamaican is drawn.
While the final determination of the party president depended largely on approximately 3,900 party delegates drawn from all over the island, the members of parliament (MPs) ought to be organically linked to these delegates since many of the groups fall within the constituencies from which the MPs themselves are elected.
MPs were, therefore, expected to have some influence on how the delegates ultimately voted. It was, therefore, logical to assume that Dr. Phillips, by virtue of enjoying the support of the vast majority of fellow MPs had the election in the bag. But the elections results have demonstrated that this was not so.
LACKED DIVERSED THINKING
It may be argued that at the root of Dr. Phillips' failure at the polls was the fact that his campaign team lacked diversity in its thinking process.
The 'Solid as a Rock' team suffered from what is sometimes referred to as 'group think.' In other words, the team was made up of a cohesive group of people who shared the same mindset and world view which was insulated from outside perspectives.
This is easy to understand since the leading members of the team were MPs who have become overconfident, obese and isolated from the party's grass roots owing to the PNP's long unbroken stint as the government.
There are several ways in which the absence of diversity in the team's thinking process may have affected the 'Solid as a Rock' campaign. For one, given the homogeneity of the group and the familiarity among its members, it is not difficult to imagine that dissent may have been viewed as unproductive and those with different ideas may have been silenced or perhaps simply went along with the group without raising objections.
Secondly, wherever group think is present, there is a tendency to rationalise away counter-arguments that conflict with the group mindset without adequately considering the merits in them.
There appears to be evidence that this was one the characteristics of the 'Solid as a Rock' team.
Recall how cavalierly Marcus Garvey was invoked to justify why any other choice outside Dr. Phillips would have been tantamount to playing with chance.
Thirdly, there was a powerful illusion of the invincibility in Dr. Phillips' camp. Mrs. Simpson Miller's educational achievement was often the object of derision and the number of MPs loyal to Dr. Phillips campaign was continually offered as the proof of the inevitability of victory.
However, the Phillips' team failed to grasp the degree to which they were disconnected from the party's grass roots.
Moreover, as the campaign marched on and the battle of words escalated, an increasing number of delegates appeared to have been alienated by the declarations of Phillips' educated élite and drifted towards Mrs. Simpson Miller with whom they could more easily identify.
It has been suggested that the main reason for the abysmal failure of the United States-backed invasion of Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 was due to an absence of diversity in the planning group's thought processes.
The same sense of invulnerability, insularity and disconnection that pervade the Phillips team was present in planning of the operation.
Whether it is the Bay of Pigs or an internal party election, any group that is too much alike in its thinking, too certain of its own strength and too quick to amplify the weaknesses of its opponents might very well flounder at the most decisive moment.
Why then was the Phillips team surprised with the results?
A couple of days before the election, the 'Solid as a Rock' team declared it had the support of about 2,000 delegates, while 'Team Portia' estimated commitment from 1,700 voters.
In retrospect, 'Team Portia's' projections were far more accurate and even conservative while the 'Solid as a Rock' forecast was off target and overblown. The fact is, the 'Solid as a Rock' team's outlook was distorted by a mindset that allowed it to see nothing else apart from victory on the horizon.
In the first place, the 'Solid as a Rock' team apparently assumed that reality is constant and stable, therefore, the estimate of 2,000 supporters made some time before the election would not change.
However, because of the nature of internal party elections, it is highly probable that voters tend to be less stable than is the case for general elections since switching from one candidate to another would not necessarily be viewed as disloyalty. Internal election forecasts as a result are therefore likely to be less reliable.
A second factor that might have created bias within the forecast is the fact that it is difficult to observe a reality when you are a part of that reality. Therefore, if a survey is done by any of the teams in a campaign, once it is known which camp is responsible for the survey, it is more likely for the delegate to give the surveyor an answer that pleases the surveyor's view rather than the truth.
It is like asking a fish vendor if his fish is fresh. The observation is affected by the observer, if the observer is a participant in that reality. In that respect, surveys conducted by the various teams in the run-up to the election may not have been objective and the statistics were therefore suspect.
TRIANGULATION APPROACH
In map making and navigation, a technique called triangulation is used to minimise errors. The technique involves the charting of an unknown position from three different perspectives. By employing this approach, greater accuracy is achieved because the navigator (or mapmaker) is not totally dependent on a single perspective. This seems to be what was lacking in the 'Solid as a Rock' data collection exercise.
The statistics were biased and the 'Solid as a Rock' team was sold on the conviction of invulnerability that it lacked the capacity to 'triangulate' or view things from multiple perspectives.
There are lessons to be learnt from the election. Unlike 'Team Portia', the 'Solid as a Rock' team built a campaign edifice on a foundation that was devoid of diversity in its thought processes. It is completely plausible that other factors may have contributed to the defeat, but this appears to have been the fatal flaw. Indeed, it was that shortcoming that rendered them incapable of averting, what for them was unforeseeable, and in the end, left them shocked at the inconceivable.
Cedric Wilson is an economics consultant who specialises in market regulations. Send your comments to: conoswil@hotmail.com.
