Peter Espeut
HERE IN the eastern Caribbean, once I open my mouth and they hear that I am Jamaican, they ask about our new lady Prime Minister. We are closely watched! Judging from the media reports - for that is all I have to go by - the opponents of Mrs. Simpson Miller are lying low, and the acrimony of the campaign trail has been buried - for the moment.
Again judging by the media, some analysts are reading her victory as the triumph of a spirit of 'change' within the PNP, and there are great expectations for the future, especially for a fifth term for the PNP. From afar, my first impression is that people have been setting her up for a fall, for no one in a short time is going to be able to make the profound changes that are being called for.
The Honourable Mrs. Simpson Miller (soon to be 'Most Honour-able') has a few things going for her. First of all, she has few favours to repay. Unlike her opponents, the private sector largely did not support her, and so she is not hostage to their interests in the way most politicians are. She has an opportunity to be hostage to the interests of the people for a change (isn't that what democracy is supposed to be about?) I expect the sycophants to be now crawling out of the woodwork, with their fists full of dollars; I hope she has the good sense not to take their money.
Unlike her opponents, she had few of her party stalwarts standing behind her, so she has few to reward with Cabinet posts and plum 'consultancies'. She owes nothing to the PNP Women's Movement, which was open in their support for one or other of the male candidates. She has the rare opportunity to be able to make appointments to boards, etc., on merit, rather than as a reward for support. I hope she makes good use of this rare opportunity to put quality into governance and to excise some of the abundant dead wood.
She is fortunate that most of the Most Honourable P.J. Patterson's 'Kitchen Cabinet' have departed the scene along with the chef. She has the opportunity to gather around her a new cadre of advisers of her own choice to chart her own course without the burden of old wine in new wineskins. It could be the beginning of a New Era for Jamaica, or it could be just the same old - same old.
I would not be true to myself if I didn't say that I hope she has an environmental conscience in a way that her predecessor did not. Being a hostage to the private sector in Jamaica has meant that you have to collaborate with them to do unsustainable things. I hope that in her arrangement of government ministries she has positioned the 'environment' portfolio so as to avoid the conflicts of interest her predecessor created. Maybe this is too much to hope for, seeing that 'the environment' did not feature in her or anyone's list of campaign issues.
On the negative side, when Mrs. Simpson Miller becomes 'Most Honourable' later this week, the millstone around her neck she will most need to be rid of is her association with the garrison phenomenon. I don't know how she is going to do it, because she is the author of arguably the strongest and most complete of the PNP garrison constituencies.
If she does not manage to get this divorce, her legacy will be in question. She will have squandered a glorious opportunity to deepen Jamaica's independence, to deepen our democracy, which none of her opponents would have had if they had won. The reforms in our political system she could engineer would have repercussions right across the Caribbean. Down here they look to us for direction, and sadly, they don't just copy the good we do.
I will return home to Jamaica later this week to a new Prime Minister. How much of a difference she will make remains to be seen. But we have great expectations.
Peter Espeut is, among other things, a consultant in sustainable rural development.
