By Anthony L Hall
After members of Jamaica’s ruling People’s National Party (PNP) elected Portia Simpson Miller as their leader in February 2006, here’s the cautionary note I struck as I paid tribute to the historic precedent she set:
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Anthony L. Hall is a descendant
of the Turks & Caicos Islands,
international lawyer and political
consultant - headquartered in
Washington DC - who publishes
his own weblog, The iPINIONS
Journal, at http://ipjn.com
offering commentaries on
current events from a
Caribbean perspective
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It was not the result of a national election, but it still counts. Because, by being elected the new leader of Jamaica's ruling People's National Party (PNP) on Saturday, Portia Simpson Miller will automatically become Jamaica’s first female prime minister when PJ Patterson, the current PM, retires in a few weeks - after 14 years in power.
Nevertheless, I am happy to celebrate her as the latest symbol of the “woman power politics” now spanning the globe.
Alas, on Monday, my caution proved well-founded. Because, after all of the votes were counted in Jamaica’s first national elections since she was effectively appointed prime minister, Mrs Simpson was rejected by the Jamaican people.
But just imagine how indignant and resentful she must have felt when preliminary results showed her losing to Bruce Golding, leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), by a tantalizingly-slim margin of 31 to 29.
It is interesting to note, however, that Golding himself seemed more confounded than jubilant when he gave what must have been the most understated election victory speech in history. Here, in part, is what he said:
However perplexing some may find the results, the fact is that the people have spoken and we of the Jamaica Labour Party, we accept and respect the decision.
Meanwhile, the prevailing view amongst political pundits is that Simpson Miller deserved to lose because she stumbled in her response to Hurricane Dean two weeks ago, the way President Bush did in his response to Hurricane Katrina two years ago. And, her overweening attempt to keep the country locked down in a post-Dean state of emergency could only have hastened her fall from grace; after all, this made it seem as if she were vying to become a Chavizta dictator rather than prime minister.
But I disagree with the prevailing view. Because disaffection and disillusionment with the PNP and her leadership emanated far more from her failure to stem the tides of chronic unemployment, abject poverty and violent crime, than from her dithering and blundering in the wake of Hurricane Dean. In fact, nothing damned Simpson Miller’s prospects of winning a national mandate in her own right more than the 17 murders that occurred just last weekend. (Never mind the stench of corruption that trailed her campaign.)
But, frankly, I suspect that the vast majority of Jamaicans who voted for the JPL were just sick and tired of almost 20 years of PNP rule – notwithstanding the historic appeal of Simpson Miller’s candidacy, or disappointments with her short-lived premiership.
Unfortunately, as has become de rigueur in close national elections all around the world, Simpson Miller refused to concede defeat gracefully on Monday night:
The election is too close to call….We are conceding no victory to the Jamaica Labour Party.
But in a surprising, though commendable, about face just 24 hours later, she seemed resigned to her ignominious fate:
The People's National Party accepts the announced preliminary results, while reserving all legal rights under the Jamaican constitution and our electoral laws... [The Party] respects and will always respect the voice of the Jamaican people and their will, as expressed in the vote.
Of course, this about face probably had more to do with revised results that showed Golding and the JPL defeating her and the PNP by an even wider margin, 32 to 28, than with her showing good statesmanship.
Nevertheless, Simpson Millier’s belated concession should lessen the likelihood that she will go down in history not only as the only Jamaican prime minister who didn’t even serve a full term, but also as one who was a very sore loser... |
