THE PEOPLE'S NATIONAL PARTY (PNP) is increasingly looking, or, more correctly, sounding like the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). It used to be the JLP, under its former leader, Mr. Edward Seaga, that was constantly in public conflict; seen as divisive, incapable of resolving conflict between undisciplined factions. JLP leader Bruce Golding may remain, in the eyes of many, lacklustre and uninspiring, but no one can deny that over the past year he has been able to bring a measure of discipline and unity to his party. Indeed, much of his critique of the Government has been cogent and profound, even if he has not yet found a way to connect to the mass of voters.
It was always going to be difficult for the PNP to repair the fissures that inevitably developed in the four-way race for the presidency of the party with the retirement of its former leader and ex-Prime Minister, Mr P. J. Patterson. After all, some powerful and important personalities were involved in that contest, a campaign that at points turned nastily angry.
But in the face of the ruling party's vaunted reputation for cohesion, especially over the past two decades or so, many people are surprised at the fractiousness that has broken out in the PNP, highlighted by the bitter fights for constituency representation and the open distrust between the partisans of the two leading contestants for the PNP's presidency, the eventual winner, Portia Simpson Miller and Dr. Peter Phillips.
Obviously, Mrs. Simpson Miller, the Prime Minister, is attempting, but has been unable, to stamp her will on the party and to shape it into her own image. She would like to have people loyal to her in key party posts and to be sure that the candidates who represent the PNP in the next general election are people whose support for her is implicit and unshakeable. Mrs. Simpson Miller has two significant problems. One is the fact that she won only 46 per cent, or less than half, of the PNP delegates who voted in the leadership election, against 41 per cent for Dr. Phillips. The latter, therefore, remains, for now, an important force in the PNP.
Mrs. Simpson Miller, therefore, has to be circumspect about how she manages changes in the party.
The second problem facing the PNP leader is the perception among Dr. Phillips' supporters that there is a deliberate attempt by the Simpson Miller people to lord it over them and to sideline her assumed opponents. Whether this is true or not, it is a source of a real schism.
So far, Mrs. Simpson Miller has not displayed the deftness of managing these expected conflicts and healing the wounds from the election and Dr. Phillips has, deliberately perhaps, stood aloof. Of course, conflicts and factions are not new to the PNP, but usually they are fights for the ideological soul of the party - like the expulsion of the Marxist left of the 1950s and their accommodation in the 1970s when the party came close to tatters.
Mr. Golding may claim that divisions in the PNP are distracting the work of government, but really, he is likely to be having the time of his life.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
