Daniel ThwaitesBEFORE ME is The Gleaner's editorial of Thursday, January 25, 2001, entitled "JLP infighting", which notes and laments the inability of the JLP to go very long without an eruption of some sort. In my view, the incident points to a number of related mysteries in the JLP.
For one thing: is there no agreed upon timetable for the choice of candidates? How could Mr. Broderick simply reappear with his pick-axe and shovel to remove Pearnel Charles?
There is also this business of a fight between the two men and their supporters. This is becoming something of a Labour Party tradition. Not too long ago Mr. Samuda gave Mr. Williams a good spanking. Now the supporters of Pearnel and Percy decide to do battle. There seems to be so much testosterone for everyone else except Seaga. It went even further. Another Labour Party tradition was in evidence: the bottle and rock-throwing.
We all vividly recall pictures of Pearnel and his supporters running frantically from the accurate stoning and bottling from the rest of the Labour Party. Now it comes again. It is even being said that this is the origin of the nomenclature: "rock-stone Labourite" so get worried the next time somebody tells you he's one of these!
Quite irrationally perhaps, I tend to have sympathy for Pearnel Charles. He was, after all, in the constituency trying to make a go of it. Furthermore, his history as a ranking Seaga-resister is commendable, though he is disgustingly opportunistic when it suits him during the gas protests and at the last JLP Conference he was singing Seaga's sankeys.
Of course, in his recent book, Seaga comes in for a bashing, and he says that his personal biggest political mistake in life was to make peace with Seaga who then, quite predictably, forced him to grovel after the Gang of Whatever incident. Pearnel's willingness to sheepishly return for more abuse borders on psychotic. Perhaps he feels that Bustamante's Party has been hijacked by aliens and that it is his duty to rescue it. But the hijack is complete, down to Seaga's protégés waiting in the wings to swoop in after his demise.
There is more. A smooth and alluring television advertisement over the Christmas showed two things.
First, the JLP was inheriting some hard cash. Media exposure isn't cheap. Second, there is the feeling in the Labour Party that its image has to change and they are willing to spend big bucks to change it. Put it this way: instead of Edward Seaga and Ryan Peralto hatching plots to take over the world in a smoke-filled room, they need to project an image of some shiny young faces shaking hands, hugging, and being all-around nice fellers.
The advertisement claimed to be from the "JLP family". That was a treat. After the Western rebellion, the Gang of Five, Gang of Seven, stoning, slapping, cussing, gag orders (still in force), secret meetings, and now another fight between two senior uncles, it is fair to say that the family needs group-therapy and a visit to the Family Court. Sometimes divorce is the better option.
Fact is the public relations will only carry you so far. In fact, the advertisement of a flawed product can have some interesting results, most notably, heightened disappointment when the truth outs. And the truth must out on this incident.
There are criminal charges which ought to be laid after this clash between supporters of two elderly former Cabinet Ministers. It ought not to be swept under the rug.
Note this. The latest crisis shows unmistakably that the spin about "democratisation" of the Party is plainly a complete shambles. The hard fact is that Seaga and Peralto will settle who runs the constituency, or for that matter, anything else having to do with the JLP. There is, after all, still only one Don.
Daniel Thwaites is involved in teaching and writing.
