Heather RobinsonIT IS 1962 and a few weeks before the April 10, 1962 General Election. My two older sisters and I are at home alone in Negril, while my mother and father have gone campaigning for his re-election as the PNP Member of the House of Representatives (MHR).
Suddenly there is the sound of a public address system approaching our home and we run to see who is coming. It is a small motorcade led by a long black car. It is the Jamaica Labour Party driving past our gate and in that long black car is Edward Seaga and Robert Lightbourne. They stop to speak with us. That was my introduction to Edward Seaga.
In December of 1995 while I was the Member of Parliament for St Catherine South Central I was informed by some JLP supporters in Central Village that their leader would be coming to have a Christmas treat for the children there.
On the appointed day of the treat I was there to welcome him to the constituency, wait while he toured and treated and then wish him a pleasant journey home. On Tuesday last I kept thinking about what I would write about for this Friday's column.
RIDICULE AND HOSTILITY
"How much is enough" came to mind as I contemplated how much more ridicule, hostility and vitriol Mr. Seaga would subject himself to within the Jamaica Labour Party.
Everyone has limits within which they place themselves. Inside politics it is no different, but it is certainly the place that leaders find themselves subjected to levels of abuse that are absent from normal everyday life.
Chief Executive Officers and Board Chairmen might face a little hostility at an annual general meeting or a few bad placards during a strike or other industrial protest. But their leadership is not questioned on an hourly and daily basis. At age 74 most private sector leaders have retired or remain on the board of directors to continue demonstrating their ownership rights. Those who continue beyond that age are owners of privately-owned companies or those who shareholders believe that the company would suffer tremendous loss without their presence.
30 YEARS AS LEADER
Edward Seaga has served the constituency of Kingston Western for 42 years and has been leading the JLP for the last 30 years. His contribution to the development of Jamaica's post independence democracy cannot be questioned. He has developed and nurtured a constituency that has remained loyal to himself and the JLP. And during all of these 30 years of leading the JLP he has managed to succeed at a contested national poll only once in 1980. The 1983 (Bogus) Elections has remained a thorn in his flesh these past 21 years.
Within the PNP of the last 23 years it has always been felt that Mr. Seaga is its best mobiliser of hard core PNP support. Comrades respond well to the announcements and "antics" of Mr. Seaga. He has been to some PNP supporters like an "Undeclared Life Member" of the PNP, as it was believed that as long as he continued to be the leader of the JLP, the JLP would never win another general election.
The challenge that the PNP faces now is to re-energise its hard core support as it too prepares for the election of a new president and for its re-election to its fifth unprecedented term in 2007. For the first time in 28 years the PNP will contest its eighth general election without Edward Seaga as the JLP leader.
PAINFUL EXPERIENCE
It is the most painful experience when your own turns on you publicly as well as privately behind the closed doors of Belmont Road or Chatwick Gardens.
In 1962 when Mr. Seaga drove past our home while leaving Negril, my sisters and I shared with them in the most practical way what Norman Manley had recently given us in the form of hosed piped water. We showered them.
My wish for Mr. Seaga is that he will have a pleasant journey between now and November, and those who aspire to lead will be far more mature than three young girls were in 1962. One day you too will lead and will wish to be treated like a life member of the JLP and not the PNP.
Heather Robinson is a life underwriter and former PNP Member of Parliament.
