Dawn Ritch, Columnist

Last week's column carried the headline 'Wanted: charisma not cerebrum'. This was a great shock to me. I'd only mentioned charisma twice, and brains not at all. Having written a column on this page for a few decades, I've written my own headline only a handful of times. This is an editorial prerogative of the editor in chief, as well as the editing of it. I particularly dislike when they change the meaning of a sentence, as was done two weeks ago. But last week topped even that. The column I wrote was on personality and political leadership. A politician's personality, I said, should attract rather than repel.

This seems to have sent the sub-editors to a dictionary, and they came up with Latin. 'Cerebrum' is Latin for the principal (anterior) part of the brain, according to the Oxford dictionary. Why would anyone want to put a dead language in a headline, except to make a point which wasn't even in the column? That is to turn the column on its ear and ask what has personality got to do with successful politics, when a brain or 'cerebrum' would be so much better?

It's a fair question I suppose, but not one I was answering last week. Instead, I explicitly stated that personality is "not charisma, it is charm. Charisma is the power to convince people to follow your leadership, to do as you do. And that's another exceptional quality."

There is a difference between having an engaging personality and a capricious one. And since The Gleaner brought up brains in a politician, let me also bring in cerebrum too. We, therefore, have as factors to consider in the winning of a general election in Jamaica an engaging personality, charisma and cerebrum.

Engaging personality

Our first Prime Minister, Sir Alexander Bustamante, had an engaging personality, charisma and cerebrum. His pictures are always smiling, people around him were animated, and his foreign policy was cogent, simple and financially beneficial to the country. He summed it up by saying: "We are with the West."

Michael Manley proved it was possible to win a general election with charisma alone. Nobody could say he had an engaging personality except deliberately so. It applied in the main to the wives of his best friends, most of whom he subsequently married serially.

His first administration in 1972 caused Jamaica to drop out of the ranks of developing countries and into the Third World, both literally and metaphorically. The results of his first disastrous stewardship demonstrated that he had no 'cerebrum'. Yet he won again in 1989, again on sheer charisma.

Edward Seaga is someone, as the late Ian Ramsay once said, only a mother could love. He does not have an engaging personality. As Minister of Finance in the 1960s he had charisma, because he had conviction and a fire in the belly. He had it in the late 1970s when he was touring Jamaica as the 'Deliverance Man'. But he quickly lost it soon after taking office in 1980.

Without either an engaging personality or charisma, he was left with only cerebrum. It should be noted therefore, that Edward Seaga won no other general election to the House of Representatives as leader of the Jamaica Labour Party.

P.J. Patterson does not have an engaging personality unless he works at it, or is in the company of intimates. He certainly had no charisma. He did, however, hav too much cerebrum, and consequently tied the country up in knots. He got away with it because he also had Edward Seaga as Opposition Leader. The voters concluded that it was better to be treated with insolence by a black man, rather than a white one.

Patterson holds the record of winning the most general elections, four in all, as president of the People's National Party. It must be said that he was publicly non-confrontational, and this gave him a measurement of engagement with the people. But the electoral ace up Patterson's sleeve was essentially the demonisation of Edward Seaga in the public mind.

Academic exercise

Pure cerebrum was what Patterson himself brought to the table. He conducted his administration, therefore, as though it were an academic exercise in endless promulgations and public commissions. While his back was turned it seems corruption ran in and took over the public sector. Wherever he was, he was not on deck, despite all that cerebrum.

Today, Portia Simpson Miller is prime minister, but has not yet faced a general election as president of the PNP. She has an engaging personality, charisma and brains. We are able to conclude that she has cerebrum because of the last year's out-turns in the country's social and economic conditions, which correspond with her first year in office. There has been significant improvement in vital indices, for the first time in 18 years. This can't be all luck, or inheritance, or divine intervention, because it could have easily gone the other way. So it's witless to suggest that she has no cerebrum.

Opposition Leader Bruce Golding does not have an engaging personality, no charisma, but it is widely believed that he has brains. This column has always held that he's an empty suit, and has a capricious personality.

Those who think he has cerebrum have been fooled by his gift of gab. He is able to listen to every point of view and immediately articulate it afterwards as his own. One day he is in favour of separation of powers, the next day he has adjusted to some hybrid form of same. Yet, he continues to seek the highest political office under the Westminster model, without indicating what he is committed to. This is why he comes across as having no fixed principle or position. Golding is famous for his flip-flops. I can't blame him, since it takes cerebrum to arrive at a conclusion one knows is right.

He reminds me of the Duke of Buckingham. The poet John Dryden wrote a verse about him in the latter part of the 17th century. It goes:

"Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;

Was everything by starts, and nothing long.

But in the course of one revolving moon,

Was chemist, fiddler, statesman,

and buffoon."