Dawn Ritch, Contributor I've been empathetic towards, and disgusted with Prime Minister P.J. Patterson. I've been intrigued and disgusted by Opposition Leader Edward Seaga. But my opinion of Bruce Golding has never varied.
To my certain knowledge, since he left the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and formed the National Democratic Movement (NDM) six years ago he's been involved in a number of negotiations to go back. He and not Mr. Seaga, however, is always the one who draws back. This has happened about six times.
I know this because Mr. Seaga asked me to help with the first negotiation which was almost immediate, and his idea. He knows I'm a friend of the JLP dissidents, and he didn't want them to wreck it before it began.
I subsequently assisted with yet another attempt which failed, but not before two other intervening attempts had also failed. Then late last year I told Mr. Seaga I'd like to try again, and I was equally unsuccessful. Since then there have been two more attempts which also failed, one at Christmas and another only a month ago.
Seaga's fault
Well, you might ask why I bother, particularly when Mr. Golding has only ever consistently underwhelmed me, whether he belonged to the JLP or NDM. For that I blame Mr. Seaga entirely, since it was he and only he who created Mr. Golding heir-apparent to himself in the JLP. In Mr. Seaga's own words to me long ago: "Bruce sat at the other side of my desk." Not only Mr. Seaga, however, has had to struggle with the demon of that heavy emotional baggage, but it seems to me the country as a whole.
Mr. Seaga is now over it. But that didn't prevent him and his people only a month ago negotiating face to face with Mr. Golding and his people to reach some political accommodation between the two parties. The effort failed within the first 15 minutes of the meeting.
I'm writing all this on Thursday morning while polling is currently going on in a high-powered by-election in North East St. Ann. So the results are not known to me. The polls predict a JLP win, but better than many perhaps I know it's not over 'til it's over.
Regardless of the results however, which I hope will be a stinging rebuke to the leadership of Mr. Patterson, I want to urge the JLP members to cease utterly its efforts to reconcile with Mr. Golding. It is a waste of precious time.
All hands on deck
In the election last Thursday the JLP had all hands on deck, including all dissidents Pearnel Charles, Karl Samuda, Mike Henry and Abe Dabdoub. They were in the constituency on the day of election and working, and they'd been working solidly on helping to bring the seat home for two or three weeks like everybody else in the JLP. And that's how it should be always. And it can't be that way if, instead, JLP members keep spending their nights and weekends in deep negotiation with the members of the NDM. As indeed they have for the past six years. This nonsense must come to an end once and for all.
The great attraction I know of the NDM is of course its candidates. Any one of them is worth 10 Bruce Goldings, maybe 100. Barbara Clarke was born to be a politician, and so were Wayne Chen and Chris Tufton. But if they continue under the leadership of Mr. Golding, their brains will turn to mush because he can't make a decision and stick to it.
Moreover, as I've always maintained, the NDM as a political party has absolutely nowhere going. Not even a new leader can help the NDM because its platform has no popular appeal.
It is sad irony and indeed a human tragedy that the party that wants to change Jamaica's constitutional system to the proven poppycock of the American Presidential system, should be the one to have the three most outstanding young candidates in politics today, where they can do least good.
Nevertheless, this morning I plead with the JLP to forget about the NDM. Make no more approaches. If the NDM makes the first move, of course consider them. But until that day expunge them all from your minds. Concentrate on the job at hand, which is preparations to win the next general election, and do so.
This administration has outlived its usefulness when householders must pay more and more for electricity while in a year their Government fails to pay the light bill for street lights throughout Jamaica. Yet any citizen with a penny is hounded to the ground for taxes. Some members of this administration don't only have green cards, they have residences in Miami, while the rest of the nation cowers under the gun and in the face of bills we can't afford to pay.
Now the Government sells our last public assets for less than the proverbial mess of pottage. Every job in jeopardy, every life at risk, every business under siege, every nest egg pressurised, and no relief in sight. Mr. Golding and his NDM merely distract attention and financing from Opposition to this wholly inept and corrupt Government. Worst of all he distracts the official Opposition itself. And the country is much the poorer for it. The JLP must therefore return to its focus at once, in the certain knowledge that the selfish one is not Mr. Seaga, but Mr. Golding. Note it, and move on.
