Dawn Ritch THE TWO politicians in this country who have got by far the most unremittingly favourable press in modern times have been Bruce Golding and Dr. Peter Phillips.
It doesn't matter to the media that everything these men touch turns to dust, that nothing seems to work for them. Their reputations remain virtually unsullied despite the failure of their endeavours, whether political or ministerial.
The approval of media despite this, is equalled only by the great warmth of big money towards these two men. If someone were to do a poll of the private sector only, the majority of the business barons in the country would be firmly in their corners. The one to become Leader of the Jamaica Labour Party, and the other to become President of the People's National Party.
It doesn't seem to matter, for example, that the Government is to pay a record $8 billion in damages to the National Transport Co-operative Society for actions taken by the same Dr. Phillips while he was Minister of Transport. I have no doubt that to Dr. Phillips's considerable good fortune, this new debacle will most likely be blamed on the current minister, Bobby Pickersgill, who had nothing to do with it.
It is noteworthy, however, that Dr. Omar Davies threw his hat in the ring at the last moment to become chairman of the PNP's Region Three in the recent PNP internal elections.
Pundits believe that this move was in an effort to position himself for a bid for the presidency of the party itself, once that becomes available when the Most Honour-able resigns. The party pulled out all the stops to ensure that Dr. Davies would have no challengers, and the previous shoo-in, Allan Rickards, agreed to become Dr. Davies's first deputy instead.
This strongly suggests that even before the vice-presidential elections took place, certain elements in the hierarchy of the PNP had begun to doubt that Dr. Phillips might actually make the grade to the presidency, even with Dr. Robertson, the kingmaker, helping him. They have been showing therefore a recent and greater interest in the political career of Dr. Davies, as an alternative on that trajectory to the Prime Ministership of the country.
Sources in the PNP tell me that he has the backing of money men in both the PNP and the JLP. And their goal is to have someone who is acceptable to big business in the country, which they believe Mrs. Simp-son Miller is not.
If the PNP is so anxious to have a Ph.D., any Ph.D., run the country, they might as well turn the island over fully to the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies. But meetings and consultants and textbooks can't run a country.
Sooner or later the PNP will have to find the nerve to try administer the country themselves, instead of perpetually looking for any avenue to pass the buck.
Another ministerial catastrophe by Dr. Davies and his political stocks will fall as low as Dr. Phillips'. And both have a very long time left in office with which to irritate people even more.
The PNP admits that they have lost the support of the middle class. But doing what Big Money wants means only that their candidate will have to answer to Big Money once he becomes Prime Minister. This outcome ought to be intolerable in a democratic country. A few people, or oligarchs, can't be in charge of running the country, regardless of which party is in power.
The irony is that the political affections of Big Money are fickle. One day you're their flavour of the month, and the next day you're not. That's what happened to the National Democratic Movement, and one of the reasons they withered on the vine.
There is no doubt that money can buy political influence. It can even win political battles in the parties themselves. But it can also lose the country because voters may not want the candidate selected for them by money and media.
Despite the trashing of Portia Simpson Miller by opinion-makers in media, she continues to be highly popular with people on both sides of the political spectrum. The pundits criticise the condition of her constituency, but not her ministerial performance. Dr. Davies and Dr. Phillips have areas in their seats as bad as hers, but nobody says that Rema or Mandela Town are disgraces. Perhaps because they realise that money voted or not voted by central government is a bigger factor in the state of a constituency, and nobody can come up with a reason for the state of hers, other than her being sidelined by the Most Honourable.
Mrs. Simpson Miller has hurdles to clear, not least of all the Most Honourable himself and the cabal in the PNP directorate determined to see that she never becomes president.
Look for alliances therefore between Dr. Robertson and Dr. Davies, now that Dr. Phillips' star has dimmed considerably between portfolio disasters and the trouncing Mrs. Simpson Miller gave him on the conference floor. Dr. Karl Blythe, who was returned as a PNP vice-president in the same elections is likely to try to build alliances with Mrs. Simpson Miller. There is no love lost between Dr. Blythe and the forces arrayed against her, because he has not concealed that he holds them personally responsible for the considerable diminution in his public reputation following the Operation PRIDE scandal.
Senator Bruce Golding has himself put several nails in his own coffin if he ever hoped to succeed Edward Seaga as Leader of the JLP. He did so in a speech at a recent G2K seminar at UWI. Golding got out his washboard and made new claims about still-undiscovered dirty linen in the JLP, and did so with a gusto it was impossible to imagine.
Readers will remember that an acrimonious Golding left the JLP to set up a rival political party. At that time he trotted out any number of reasons why he couldn't possibly have stayed. Not once did he mention during that time that he thought the JLP had a poor record in human rights. Now that he has returned to the party, Golding suddenly plucks this one out of a hat. Is there no end to the evil he sees in the JLP?
Yet he still wants to lead it? This is unutterably hypocritical. It smacks of playing to the gallery.
Senator Golding is as usual pandering to the press and Big Money. But his persistent political treachery has not endeared him to the JLP rank-and-file, despite the best efforts of some elements in the senior leadership of that party.
It should be noted that neither media nor Big Money has any marked fondness for people they can't influence and manipulate. But the politician on whose desk the buck finally stops cannot be someone built by the press or money, no matter how much or how determined. Those kinds of candidates inevitably cannot stand scrutiny. Any regard from the public is doomed to be only a passing fancy.
FOOTNOTE: In my column last week "How to make sense of Education" I omitted what is becoming a widespread racket in extra lessons. Instead of teaching the children properly from Monday to Friday, many teachers provide extra lessons on Saturdays and on afternoons during the week. This means parents have to pay twice for the education that their children are not receiving. The children waste time going to school every day, and have to spend endless hours in the afternoons attending extra lessons. Parents and children are being burnt to a frazzle for extra Maths, and extra every subject.
