THE TRIUMPH of Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller is the triumph of quality over the rough house and the slipshod. It is a light in the ignorance of our times.
'Team Portia' ran a brilliant campaign from start to finish, and didn't even mind when people laughed at them or their candidate. They just pressed ahead in a well-mannered and thoughtful way.
Jennifer Edwards exemplified that spirit in its secretariat. Paul Burke was nothing short of a wonder. From the moment of victory, my phone has not stopped ringing. Women want to meet him. Patiently I tell them he's already married.
On television and radio, Burke was always calm, quiet and confident. It was guaranteed to bring out a hoard of female admirers. Hopefully, they will be as well mannered as the political campaign that was run.
PREDICTING OUTCOME
Both Paul Burke and Tony Myers predicted the winning outcome in delegate votes almost down to the last digit. I'm always amazed when political analysts, activists and pundits can do that sort of thing.
It is impossible to put it down to luck, because of the thieving involved in politics. Stealing and bribery have become a way of life in elections, which is why they've become so brutally expensive.
But Portia made it clear from the start that she put her faith in God, wouldn't be bribing a soul, and was depending largely on volunteerism.
Such frankness made the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) and press conclude that she really had no sense, and could safely be ignored.
Well, she's had the last laugh. A word of advice therefore, to all the people still planning to trip her up. Save your energy for the hard work ahead. I do not think Mrs. Simpson Miller sprinted into every venue because she wanted to give you a good night's sleep. It's going to be work, work, work all the way with her.
After she'd won, every news medium announced the next day that she was 60 years old. Let the record show, therefore, that during her political race she was even denied the dignity of age.
Here was a lady who looked like a 45-year-old, and in better condition, yet not a soul would say it. This was jealousy and bad-mindedness at its most rampant.
Her critics are going to have to get accustomed to seeing her standing on her feet and talking in the House of Parliament. Male members will know that there'll be no more getting drunk in the bar and changing decisions made on the floor. The merits of the case will no longer be decided at the upper deck.
Honest, hard-working Jamaicans will be able to go home at a decent hour, knowing that the country is in a safe pair of hands at long last.
I am by no means suggesting that the rum bars will be empty islandwide; merely that vital decisions of national importance will no longer be taken in them. Mrs. Simpson Miller is a non-drinker. This cannot but have a telling impact upon the way the country is run.
It's the elderly and the children who have the sway now, because the delegates of the PNP had their say, despite the thieving of 150 votes in the last hour of polling at Jamaica College.
After the close of voting, when the Peter Phillips camp took to the radio waves saying that they'd won, a chill went through my bones. That could only be the prelude to a heist.
However, despite bribery and corruption, Mrs. Simpson Miller won by nearly 300 votes in a four-way race. It was a revolution in the PNP, and one that bodes well for the country.
The Prime Minister-designate has a brilliant mind and unquestioned integrity. Since we're going to have to listen to her voice for decades, I'm also glad it's a nice one.
Mrs. Simpson Miller has always played her cards close to her chest. We shall not be hearing about her breakfast, lunch and dinner, nor getting an endless stream of announcements.
The press will have to find a new modus operandi and begin to examine what is done, instead of just reporting on what is said. They're going to have to start working for a living like everybody else.
CHANGE IN CULTURE
The change in culture is long overdue. Her victory was greeted by a joyous tumult across the island. It is impossible therefore, for even the most reluctant observer not to have a new respect for PNP delegates. They have given the country what it wants.
For myself, I'm deeply grateful that it is no longer a case of 'what if', though pundits even now are churning out a whole new range of them, like some parlour game. For the vast majority of the country, Mrs. Simpson Miller's eventual accession to office will mean peace of mind.
Their husbands will come home at night because there's no point being out on the road. They may not wash dishes, but they might help with home work. Certainly dead-beat dads are going to be under pressure to shoulder their responsibilities, so poor granny can get a break.
Things will start to make sense again, because nobody will be trying to blind us with science anymore. Or make us feel dunce. Jobs will increase. Screaming and murder will decline. Even the air we breathe will be cleaner.
All these heavenly qualities will once again reign because a candidate that the hierarchy of the PNP, the PSOJ and the media didn't want to win, has done so. So much for them. We owe our good fortune to the poor and undereducated and largely unemployed delegates of the People's National Party.
They voted in the best person for the job even though the status quo was against her. There was a lot of egg flying around on Saturday night, and none of it for eating.
The paradox is that things are going to get much worse before they get better. There's nobody in charge. Jamaica is going to be on extended autopilot for quite some time.
There is a national budget being tabled in the House of Parliament shortly that doesn't belong to her, but to outgoing Prime Minister P. J. Patterson and his Finance Minister Dr. Omar Davies. There is also a long wait of several weeks before Mrs. Simpson Miller is actually installed as Prime Minister.
And no one need doubt that even now she's thinking of a general election. After all, she is a politician in search of a national mandate to govern in her own right. Having won one campaign therefore, she has entered another.
