It is done. The presidential election in the People's National Party (PNP), I mean. Not political careers. For the victor cannot hope to build a strong and united party without the support of the substantial grouping which supported the vanquished.
But what now for the party, having settled its leadership issue?
role as opposition
The fundamental interest of No-P Jamaica in the PNP is in its roles as a vigorous opposition and as a viable government in waiting. The people have entrusted governance to the PNP for 33 of the 64 years of self-government under universal adult suffrage, 1944-2008. Warts and all, the party is a national institution.
We are, therefore, at liberty to ask 'Team PNP', as it seeks to 'Arise and Renew' to fulfil certain critical obligations towards the good gover-nance, peace and prosperity of Jamaica land we love.
Among the party's many warts is its capacity for building garrisons. The PNP holds garrisoned constituencies 5:1 to the JLP by anybody's count.
Every crime report has linked garrisonisation to the extra-ordinary levels of crime and violence in the country.
We call upon the PNP to place at the top of its agenda, collaboration with the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) for crime reduction, which must necessarily involve the dismantling of political garrisons.
Human rights
The tough fight against crime must be conducted with due respect given to human rights.
There are significant concerns about the human-rights implications of six anti-crime bills being rammed through the Parliament by the Government. The legal fraternity and human-rights advocacy groups have raised specific objections.
But it is to the Opposition that the country must most look for a robust defence of human rights in the legislative chamber.
It is not to the credit of the PNP to have left office after 18 years with the Charter of Rights mothballed. Now that the charter is again on the parliamentary agenda, we expect robust leadership from the Opposition PNP towards the delivery of a good and powerful charter of rights.
What does the PNP want to renew? At the launching of the PNP on September 18, 1938, founding president Norman Manley began his address to an overflowing Ward Theatre audience by acknowledging that "we have serious economic difficulties to face".
Manley's speech was permeated with the idea of a self-governing Jamaican nation taking its place in the world and of the emergence of a "national consciousness".
Little or no change
Thirty-one years later, Norman Manley delivered his famous 'Mission Accomplished' farewell address as he retired from leading the PNP. Contrary to the buoyancy of the title and the glittering mythology surrounding the speech, it was a jaded final address.
Yes, self-government and independence had been accom-plished, but the aged leader lamented that "we have seen how, since Independence Day, the masses of Jamaica have found little or no change in their social and economic way of life".
In a two-level economy, "there is a poverty-stricken lower sector burdened with terrible levels of unemployment, where the small farmer does not have enough land to make a living, where housing is deplorably bad, where home life is destructive of progress, where education is inadequate, where conditions are hard and frustrating, and, where, worst of all, opportunities for young people, girls and boys, are for the most part, non-existent."
In the context of the then recent Rodney riots, Manley described these conditions as a "breeding ground for extremism and violence".
"In 1938, we of the PNP," he said, "were the pioneers at a time of crisis in what was to prove a political revolution." But "in 1968, the wheel has come full circle," he lamented, "and we face the need for profound social and economic changes".
While declaring that "I do not wish to speak ill of Sir Alexander Bustamante", Manley spent a great deal of 'Mission Accomplished' to lay blame squarely upon the JLP leader, his party and the Government it had formed after the April 1962 election for the ills of the country.
"It was then that Labour came to power. Since then, it has been tragic and painful to watch what has happened in Jamaica."
The current leadership of the PNP must not, in worshipful reverence of founding father Manley and 'Mission Accomplished', go back to such an unjustifiable stance which, in its continuation between the two parties, has only served to exacerbate Jamaica's political, social and economic problems.
Brilliant lawyer and rationalist though he was, Norman Manley was wrong about socialism. And the renewal of the PNP in the 21st century cannot be accomplished by an ideological clinging - if not in practice - to its Fabian socialist roots.
The party adopted an explicit socialist stance at its 1940 annual conference at which President Manley said in his public address, "Now, when this party was formed - and it is necessary to be perfectly frank in this - its original programme was not a socialist programme."
He told conference in 1945, "Democracy in a real sense must mean socialism." Political parties can and do reinvent themselves.
not to repeat mistakes
Both history and economics have demonstrated the inadequacies and inferiority of socialism as an instrument of human development.
The PNP, led by the same president who had taken the furthest steps to build a democratic socialist society, dramatically reinvented itself into a market-oriented, centrist party, while retaining its admirable social conscience.
The leader today can draw strength and inspiration from the history of the party, but must be careful not to repeat its mistakes or to believe that going forward means going back to the past.
Martin Henry is a communications consultant. Feedback may be sent to medhen@gmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.
