Ian Boune, Contributor

It will be her most-anticipated speech. Wherever people are tonight, they will be taking time out to see whether 'she announce the date yet'. She will have a captive audience for free, unlike Bruce Golding last Sunday night. How she uses the time could have a major bearing on the outcome of the election.

It has been a long road for Portia Lucretia Simpson Miller, an authentically grassroots political leader, fromthe bowels of the working class. She cut her teeth in politics over 30 years ago in the rough and tumble of inner-city life, under the tutelage of the hard-core People's National Party MP Tony Spaulding and Trench Town Rock.

But her ideological inspiration came from Michael Manley, the uptown member of the intellectual aristocracy, whose heart burned for the liberation of the downtrodden masses. Manley gave ideological form to what were Portia's natural stirrings for the oppressed. She knew and experienced enough poverty to be incensed by it and determined as hell to burn it out.

For many years, Portia Simpson was our most loved politician after Michael Manley. Her ready, endearing smile, affectionate and ubiquitous hug, captivating charisma and deep compassionate nature mesmerised many. For years, she was the darling of the media, attracting uncritical attention and succeeding in turning even tough journalists and commentators into pussycats.

Stunned reaction

Many have yet to realise that what they describe as Portia's outbursts against the media and her alleged intemperate attacks, come from a stunned reaction on her part to this great falling out of love by a media which had pet her for so long.

When she battled for the presidency of her party, it was not hard for the media to give her an easier time than the rest, for she had come with tremendous emotional capital. Even Motty Perkins was a great public supporter and Mark Wignall virtually a part of the Team Portia campaign team. As I had said then, it was not so much their love for Portia - though there was that - as their antipathy and revulsion toward 'The Drumblair Group' whom they blamed for the country's problems.

I predicted that they would fall out of love with Portia and go back to Bruce once the presidential elections were over, and today they are her two fiercest detractors in media. In their eyes, she had served her purpose by routing the fellows who were the real object of their wrath - Omar Davies and Peter Phillips.

The worst fears about Portia's ascendancy to power have not been materialised. The party has not disintegrated into warring factions and the initial difficulties of the post-presidential electoral period, blown up by the media and given every attention, as is our right, have not remained. Even if you say cynically that the problems are just kept quiet, Portia has to get some credit for that.

There has been no resignation of any Cabinet member, despite persistent predictions in the media that there would be. Omar Davies and Peter Phillips are still in place. Donald Buchanan, who was a major part of Omar's team, is now Portia's Information Minster and General Secretary of the party, effectively the man working closest to her. Others who worked with Peter Phillips in the PNP presidential race have also received important appointments. And even D.K. Duncan is back!

Figment of imagination

Significantly, too, the nightmare that Portia would be a populist Prime Minister whom the fiscally conservative Omar could not restrain has been proven to be a figment of some people's imagination. She could boast in Parliament during her Budget speech, with her Minister of Finance smiling with absolute delight, that she had walked the course of fiscal responsibility. She then reeled of a string of macroeconomic successes not associated with populist regimes.

Contrary to the views of some, too, that Portia would embarrass us internationally, and that she could not hold her own in international fora, she has received standing ovations at international gatherings. Certainly, no reports have emerged that she either embarrassed herself or the country - and you know our media would not hide that, even if it came to them through the grapevine.

Let it be acknowledged that some of the worst fears about Portia Simpson have not materialised. This is not to say that her leadership is without flaws of that she has not manifested weaknesses.

Unfounded fears

We will soon be called upon to make a judgement upon her stewardshipand that we will do so in the best traditions of democracy. My purpose here is not to give an overall assessment of her tenure in office - but just to point out that some widely circulated fears have proven to be unfounded.

Tonight, though, Portia comes to a crucial juncture. First, the country wants to be relieved of its collective anxiety over the election date. It is not just 'the little man in green and his few friends who want the election', as the Prime Minister has charged. It is the country which is ready for it, along with her party, as her own Minister of Local Government, the frank-talking Dean Peart told Emily Crooks on 'This Morning'.

Portia needs to realise that her speech tonight is even more important than her Budget presentation. She will have a much bigger and more attentive audience (they'll be waiting for the date which she will string them out until the last minute). The first ting Portia needs to do tonight is to forget the vast crowd before her.

Emotional control

Tonight is the night to practise emotional control and to demonstrate emotional intelligence. She can't allow herself to be carried away by the partisans before her and those on the platform. She needs to address the nation, especially the uncommitted which now constitutes an even bigger majority than enjoyed by either party. Portia needs to think about all those people who are cynical, turned off, apathetic and frustrated. That's the audience she must address.

She must address those bruised by underemployment and crime.

Her raison d'être must be to make people believe in the political project again and to make them believe that she is the change. She has said it. She must now communicate it feelingly and convincingly.

My most intellectually stimulating lecturer at university, Professor Aggrey Brown, used to tell us, his communication students: "Communication is not just the dissemination of information. It is the transference of meaning." I have not forgotten that in a quarter of a century. She must connect with the people. Connecting is not just talking patois and dancing around the stage. That, she has mastered.

She must touch the hearts and appeal to the minds of the disaffected, the people on the fence, the disillusioned PNP, the uncommitted who have become disappointed in her. She must win and woo back the sheep who have strayed, and she must gather new ones to the fold.

Working underdog image

How will she do that? Not by attacking anyone or complaining about being attacked by anyone. The underdog image works best when you don't consciously draw attention to it. Let people see that you are being attacked and pounced upon and that you are like a lamb to the slaughter. People instinctively rush to your rescue and defence. When you defend yourself, they recoil. They will defend you when you don't defend yourself.

She must speak well of her opponents (that can't hurt; it doesn't matter what any dog-heart says!). She must be charitable. You run the risk of alienating some of your own supporters and friends if you behave unseemly and discourteous, even when others are behaving that way toward you.

Always take the high ground. I know the view that if the opponents think you are soft, they will continue 'to tek step wid yu and a if you give dem an inch, dem tek a yard'.

But who is your audience; who are you trying to influence when you 'chuck badness'? Supporters might shout 'Pram Pram!' in dancehall style but you would have lost the audience you wanted to reach. Nobody could cuss and trace more than Eddie Seaga. Where did that get him, despite his enormous strengths? It's not IQ, it's EQ (Emotional Quotient).

Portia must campaign on her record and on her platform of poverty eradication and people-centred development. She must convince the business class that she will continue to be fiscally responsible and business-friendly. She must reach out to small business people and small farmers and frame a policy outlook that will benefit them. She must show that she is pro-production, not just pro-distribution, for you cannot distribute what you don't have.

She must talk values, she must appeal to our Christian conscience. (See how Bruce liberally made religious references last Sunday, even while saying he would never use the church to gain power!)

Portia has to keep in mind that her audience is not the sea of people before her tonight. She must make even Labourites want to re-think their assessment of her. A triumphalistic bragging about achievements will not work either. She must acknowledge that there are people left behind in 18 years of PNP rule.

Say what you want about Golding's lack of charisma, but Bruce has a way of connecting with the interests and day-to-day concerns of ordinary Jamaicans. His platform presence is not imposing or impressive, but when he talks, the mother struggling to send her children to school; the youth who can't get any job despite his seven CXCs; the 'baby father' who can't find a job to feed is four children; the little old lady who can't afford her medicine and the small businessman who cannot get adequate financing for his project, can connect with him. Bruce talks reality. He is down to earth with the concerns articulated.

Portia's vast command of media time tonight would normally cost the party huge sums. This opportunity for as much free time will not come again. My advice to her is: Use it wisely, waste not a minute, certainly not in futile lambasting.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com.