Ian Boyne

Perhaps the most remarkable and noteworthy thingabout the election is just how close the People's National Party came to gaining a fifth term. Even arch PNP critic Wilmot Perkins exclaimed on Tuesday morning, "I am amazed; it is totally amazing that so many people voted for the PNP ..."

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader Bruce Golding himself said in his victory speech on Monday night that the people "in their profound wisdom" had sent a message, as evidenced by the narrow margin of victory.

After all the charges of PNP corruption, mismanagement, incompetence and after a stunningly impressive JLP advertising campaign set against the PNP's inept, amateurish and disastrous early attempt at an air war; plus massive spending by the moneyed classes in favour of the JLP; coupled with strong organisational work on the ground and a brilliant campaign strategy; after all of that, such a slim victory calls for explanation.

It confirms that this is really 'PNP country' and that there is perhaps such a thing as 'the Portia factor'. Reputable pollster Don Anderson was quick to assert that without the Portia factor the PNP would have lost by a wider margin.

low voter turnout

There was a lower than expected voter turnout. Why, despite the JLP propaganda line that "PNP mash up Jamaica", and that Omar Davies has been more disastrous than all our hurricanes, did so many vote for the PNP? Because, as I had written before, many people don't have the sense of economic despair which are ascribed to them by JLP spokespersons. Many can point to benefits they have derived under PNP rule over the last 18 and a half years.

Many can identify with Portia Simpson Miller as a black, marginalised woman of working class origins; a woman who exudes compassion, caring and a heart. The charismatic appeal of Portia Simpson Miller was never to be underestimated and, indeed, the JLP never did. That is why they won.

For let nothing take away from the JLP victory. Indeed, the same set of arguments used to demonstrate Portia's and the PNP's strengths and good showing in the electionshow, paradoxically, why the JLP deserves congratulations in pulling off this victory. For it was in this 'PNP country,' and faced with this strong, likeable and charismatic party leader that Bruce Golding was able to pull off a victory over the PNP.

Sure, incumbency itself worked heavily against the PNP. Even some PNP people just wanted a change and did not feel that it was good for democracy for any one party to be in power for so long. Yes, people wanted to "give somebody else a

chance". But the fact that such a large number of people did not change course with the PNP means that beating the PNP was no walkover and, therefore, the fact that Bruce Golding's JLP busted the PNP's electoral juggernaut is some accomplishment.

It has been a long, rocky and turbulent road for Bruce Golding. It has not been an easy dance with destiny. He was brought back too late in 2002 to pull off the victory for the party, but as I had said in my column of October 6, 2002, "Bruce is not thinking October 16. For the first time he has a real opportunity to have state power within five years. History will absolve him ..."

When he left the National Democratic Movement in 2002, his angry former NDM colleague Stephen Vasciannie indelicately described his return to the JLP as throwing a dead cat on the PNP deck. Well, the cat lives - much to the detriment of the PNP deck!

In that column I wrote that "the intellectually-sharp, strategically-focused Bruce Golding is the one looking beyond the immediate to the wider horizon". That wider horizon is now, and when he takes his oath as Jamaica's eighth Prime Minister this week, it will represent a poignant moment for a man who has challenged the political status quo in a way that Michael Manley challenged the economic status quo. As I wrote in my column of September 15, 2002, "Golding's ideas for reforming the Jamaican political system and culture are the most gripping, revolutionary and far-reaching on the political table so far".

Bruce Golding has been under-rated by both Comrades and his own colleagues in the JLP. Over the years I have defended his strengths not only to Comrades but to detractors in the JLP. The JLP has traditionally been a party of crude pragmatists. They have scorned ideology and regard it as a bad word. While Golding has not worn any label, he has been a man committed - indeed possessed by certain ideas since the 1990s. When he could no longer find a place for their full expression in the JLP, he left as a matter of principle, a decision which has haunted him every since but one I believe which has benefited him.

As I wrote in my column of March 19, 2006 when I took Abe Dabdoub to task for his searing criticisms of Golding's departure from the JLP, "It was the NDM agenda which really catapulted Bruce Golding into national consciousness and which gave him his appeal. It was the traction that he found during his NDM presidency which subsequently made him attractive to the moneyed classes. Golding showed that he was a man of ideas and substance who could think outside the box."

I went on to say, "Bruce Golding captured the imagination of important sections of civil society by putting on the national agenda some of the most critical issues to have been placed there since Michael Manley. Bruce Golding brought a freshness of ideas and perspective; a fundamental challenge to the political system and status quo." Outside of the shadows of Edward Seaga, he could and did shine.

As a progressive, I have always been impressed with Bruce's ideas for reforming our decadent political culture and system. This is why I have consistently supported his ideas for reform of our political system. In my September 15, 2002 column I wrote that "in Golding we would have a leader who could excite us intellectually, touch us emotionally (he is a first-rate communicator who knows the pulse of the people) and who would have the technocratic skills to guide a market economy". My admiration for Golding has been based on principle and ideology, not any partisan support. Asa progressive, I support progressive ideas wherever they are found. This makes me dissimilar to other Jamaican progressives who can only support progressive ideas if they come from the PNP.

Which progressive can read the early sections of the JLP manifesto on governance, garrisons and justice and not be impressed? When I heard the man speak in his budget presentation last year and reeled out proposals to strengthen the Opposition in Parliament when he he had every intention of being in Government, how could I fail to be impressed? Golding's ideas on the role of the state in economic development are closer to those of progressives than to the neo-liberals.

This is why the NWU's charges against the JLP were so completely disingenuous. The JLP's model is more activist and interventionist. In my column of May 7, 2006 lauding his budget presentation, I wrote that "his defense of the poor and defenceless was as admirable as it was poignant, and I applaud him for blowing the whistle on the neo-liberal state concerned about cost-recovery at the expense of the poor."

As a progressive, I support free tuition and free medical care and believe, like Michael Manley, that the state cannot afford not to afford certain things for the poor and dispossessed. Golding put it well in his budget speech last year (which was far superior to this year's presentation): Inveighing against neo-liberal, Washington Consensus economics without mentioning the terms - the very position the NWU has accused him of - Golding said plainly, "We must balance the books to balance people's lives, but painful experience has shown that balancing the books does not in itself balance people's lives. And there is no purpose in balancing the books if in the process we destroy people's lives".

A great advocate of the poor, Portia Simpson Miller, would say exactly the same thing. And Michael Manley would agree. It is our repulsive tribalism which makes us build walls between these people. As a non-partisan and non-tribalist, I have no such obligation.

So I have publicly supported Golding over the years just as I have supported Portia's mission to uplift the poor and oppressed and to give voice to the voiceless. I am convinced that Golding can make a difference.

Unlike my PNP friends, I don't have a problem in trusting Golding, though I don't deify him. He is a flawed human being whom we must criticise and even lambaste when he betrays principles.

But since the 1990s he has been a man on a mission. His gracious, magnanimous and touchingly conciliatory speech on Monday night shows the calibre of a leader he is. Golding has enormous emotional control and demonstrates deep emotional intelligence.

Despite attacks against him by Dabdoub, Parchment and others - and he has faced the acerbic pen of Mark Wignall, too, remember - he has never replied with acrimony. He has ignored it. That is emotional mastery. He will need that at this time, as the tribalists and power-gluttons swarm him and demand their version of ethnic cleansing.

Golding has always respected mainstream values and the voice of civil society. Much to the annoyance of his own colleagues, some of whom are still in the old tribalist mold. He must bring them along. He must train them in the New Politics.

His speech at the swearing-in will be impressive. It will stir minds as well as move hearts. But what will be most important is that he walks the talk; that he uses this golden opportunity to do something at last about the things which he has felt and spoken deeply about. History will not absolve him if he does otherwise.

[Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboynbe1@yahoo.com]