Robert Buddan

The People's National Party (PNP) has taken certain steps towards its renewal as a future governing party. It has outlined its role as Opposition party at the party's conference in September. It has commissioned and received a post-election appraisal (the Meeks Appraisal) promised at that conference and delivered for its January NEC. It has also elected a new general secretary in Peter Bunting, with a mandate to rebuild the party organisation.

Parallel to these efforts at renewal, the party has assumed its responsibilities as Opposition party. It has named its shadow cabinet. It has assumed chairmanship of parliamentary committees. It has been active in parliament's plenary sessions asking questions, introducing motions, and debating policy. It has taken up certain matters in the courts, such as the eligibility of members of the JLP to sit in Parliament and the firing of the Public Sector Commission. It has also resumed the Vale Royal Summits, which has now met for the first time in the new year.

Renewal and appraisals serve to transform the party. The PNP has been talking renewal, reform, reinvention, and transformation over the last 10 years. The party knew well before the last elections and before the change of leadership that many things were not right. Even when it was winning elections it was doing so with fewer votes. Probably the man of the moment is Peter Bunting. He has given himself the mandate of rebuilding the party organisation.

Mr Bunting is taking up the reins of general secretary with some political capital of his own. He is Member of Parliament of a strategic constituency in Manchester. He is chairman of one of Parliament's most important committees, that for the economy and production, which gives him a leadership role in Parliament and he sits on the Public Accounts Committee as well.

He is a member of the PNP's team in the newly restarted Vale Royal Summits, where he can help to set the agenda for executive policy and party bipartisanship. He has four years' experience in representational politics in Southern Clarendon, after defeating a giant of Jamaica's politics, Hugh Shearer, in 1993.

Fast rising star

In addition to this, Peter Bunting is a fast rising-star in the PNP, and is already being seen as a future party leader and prime minister. He has seen the job from up close as adviser to Michael Manley and junior minister under P. J. Patterson. He has a profile among the top three in the PNP triumvirate of Portia Simpson Miller, Peter Phillips and himself. At a time when the PNP seeks to restore its standing among the middle class, the business community and the intelligentsia, Bunting's credentials in all three areas stand him in good stead.

Bunting's track record in running large organisations can only be another strong point. He is well known for his co-leadership of Dehring, Bunting and Golding. But he has also been chairman of the National Water Commission, parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Health, secretary of the PNP's Research and Policy Review Commission, president and CEO of the National Investment Bank of Jamaica, and chairman of JAMPRO (Jamaica Trade and Invest).

If Mr Bunting can translate his personal philosophy and experience into this phase of his political life, he might be just what the PNP needs. Mr Bunting's philosophy is summed up as 'integrity, respect, and results'. He grew up with the traditional values of a farming community in rural Jamaica founded on family, community and commitment to hard work. He believes that maximising the potential of every Jamaican is the goal of the political process.

Mr Bunting will have to translate his philosophy and values into the PNP's transformation process, specifically in answer to the question: what kind of party should the PNP be? He takes some credit for advising Michael Manley, the passionate socialist of the 1970s, to adopt liberalisation in the 1990s. He contributed to the shift to the market-driven model, privatisation, trade liberalisation and foreign exchange liberalisation, all in preparation for globalisation.

All of this was necessary and confirmed by the 21st Century Mission Report of the party (1999), composed under the chairmanship of Peter Phillips and the presidency of P.J. Patterson. The report justified all of these policies as necessary for transformation under globalisation.

There is another tendency within the PNP, however, and one that Mr Bunting also represents. It is the communi-tarian tendency by which humans, not market relations, are entrusted to the institutions of people - family and community - through which to create the values that are necessary for nation building, values such as integrity, respect, and results. Mr. Bunting prides himself on being a product of family and community values.

He echoes this tendency when he says that his approach is "to put people at the centre of all development strategies. The people must be true partners in a constructive dialogue to improve the quality of life in their communities". This is the tendency represented by Portia Simpson Miller and a new agenda of development as a human right. best performing company

The PNP represents two dominant tendencies - one believing in market rights, and the other in human rights - as the better means to development. How does one make this work? Mr Bunting himself represents an example of using private banking (DB&G) and public banking (NIBJ) as sources for development funding in housing, road construction, agriculture, manufacturing and tourism, while DB&G was still able to win awards as the best performing company on the stock exchange in 2005 and 2006, and the Governor General's Award for Excellence in 2006.

The answer lies in creative solutions that are not given enough of a chance as long as the traditional private sector dominates the political process and buys its way into the corridors of power, using its old-fashioned and self-serving profits-first approach that exploits families and communities and destroys their environment, as Mr Bunting's committee knows from investigating land restoration policies in the bauxite industry. Creative solutions can make the economy market-friendly and make the market people-friendly.

Another challenge facing Mr Bunting is his role in reinventing the PNP as a party of integrity, respect and results. It is on these values that the party will be judged if it is to lead the country in nation building. To this end, he should return to the 21st Century Mission Report, and particularly where it says, "The party should strengthen the powers of the Internal Affairs Commission to undertake its own investigations of any reports, rumours or suggestions of impropriety on the part of its members.

"There must be a slate of progressive sanctions to ensure compliance with the party's principles and objectives and its constitution."

It is good to see Mr Bunting's activism on Parliament's committees and to hear his statements on the light bulb issue as a member of the party's executive committee. But the internal strengthening of the party's commissions as a pre-requisite for re-establishing 'respect, integrity and results' is necessary to create a more disciplined organisation that is uncompromising on these values.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm