Party Reformation: My Struggles with PNP

“We'd all like t'vote for th' best man, but he's never a candidate”
Kin Hubbard

For some time I have been uncomfortable with the inner workings of the People’s National Party. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between the PNP and the JLP. This to me is an issue of ideology and personality. Ideologically the PNP used to a socialist party and governed by a social democratic ethos, that is no more. Socialism used to be unfashionable so the party abandoned it somewhere in the 90’s while subscribing to IMF edicts. However Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Occasio Cortez and Kshema Sawant prove that socialism is alive and well even in the heart of world superpowers. Yet the PNP drifts ideologically and philosophically here in this 21st century. Then when we see candidate choice and selection for both local and central government elections are riddled with egomaniacs on both sides who treat the electorate as secondary or non-essential till election day while always courting the delegates of both parties who are stuck as die hearts to each party or victims of some kind of political Stockholm’s syndrome. This cannot continue.

Well the monomania media election blitz will soon be in full swing, and everybody will be vying for votes. Tribal politics has taken to social media and the factions there are always in electoral fever. In all this Mobay, the government’s bastard child always neglected for the media pet Kingston, it seems silly that we, major contributors to the nation’s economy, via tourism, foreign currency and remittance dollars (legal and via lotto scam), have so little say. I say we hold candidates to ransom; each community ought to kidnap the MP, until the community’s demands are met. Until there is a community centre in every community, till the roads are addressed, until drainage is solved and so on.



Dr Peter Phillips’ viability as party leader is in question, it is one of the central issues to the undecided voter. The party is confronting new questions about who it is and what it stands for. The more important question however,  is how this plays out in our next election. PNP hopefuls will need to test the “articulate minority’s” and the grassroot’s wish list on the stump and might feel pressure to outbid each other on how far left they can go. Those apparently pursuing an “adult in the room” or  “trying to stay tame and sound normal strategy,” such as the PNP has been fumbling along with, will not only face opposition from the modern PNP base and the unattached voters, but will also find the free media oxygen sucked from the room by the more colorful radical opponents.

The ideologically driven members of the party make for good television but bad politics where the conservative party members and delegates are concerned. But the ideas that are talked about by civil society organizations, popular movements and political radicals in Jamaica are neglected by the PNP extablishment. In a May 2016 article entitled “Portia Betrayed” O. Dave Allen contends that the PNP and Portia was betrayed by the country, I contend that it is the PNP that betrayed the voters and even he seems to admit that when he wrote in the article that:

“The opposition was broke, starved of donor funding from the private sector, the leadership of Andrew Holness was in question; and the JLP fractious. For the first time in the history of Peoples National Party, the party enjoyed the full and explicit support for its policies by the formal private sector, the international donor community and local and international financial intermediaries.Yet not much could be shown by way of social programmes in keeping with the historic characteristics, policies and programmes of previous PNP administrations.”

Grassroots leftist insurgency that has sprung up across the country, including in spots far from PNP strongholds. Today, ultimately, the most profound progressive leadership for the PNP is not being embraced at all. It’s in communities and movements across the country—nurturing diverse progressive political strengths in many aspects of social change, including at election time.

No matter how intense the top-down pressure gets from Party hierarchy, we should insist from the ground up that members of Parliament and Councillors stand their ground for progressive principles that the man in the street is seeking. If party members aren’t willing to fight for those principles, then the grassroots will mobilize: to create an outcry, to lobby and to consider launching challenges as is evidenced by Peter Buntings hat being thrown in PNP’s political ring. I think it is a good thing and no elected officials should be immune from scrutiny and accountability.

The Ghosts of 'New PNP' Are Haunting Us

“Ghosts don't haunt us. That's not how it works. They're present among us because we won't let go of them."
"I don't believe in ghosts," I said, faintly.
"Some people can't see the color red. That doesn't mean it isn't there," she replied.
~Sue Grafton, M is for Malice

Twenty-something years ago, in the mid 90s the so-called New PNP emerged. PJ Patterson’s PNP a machinery efficient at the grassroots level but bereft of socialist ideology and teeming with neo-liberal ideas and globalization as there buzzword. Economic divestment abounded, and as such government sold Air Jamaica and JPS to suit the New World Order. Today, his political heirs are hesitant and ambivalent to consider or re-inject socialism into Party from living up to its history. At stake is opportunity to capture the Zeitgeist and the possibility that the PNP will lose more elections and be out of step with international academic thought, which has seen a resurgent socialism globally.

A fundamental battle for democracy is in progress—a conflict over whether to reduce the power of delegates which outweighs and is out of step with the will of the electorate. That struggle is set to reach a threshold soon as delegates push into power their friend who benefits them… delegates fight for spoils and scarce benefits, despite the hopes of party supporters and the electorate. Hence we have an upper echelon in the PNP listening to delegates who to a great extent do not represent or understand the plight of the electorate… and while it is delegates who give MPs and Councillors strength and position… it is the electorate who actually gives them power. So while the party listens to sycophants and minions, it risks the real prospect of alienating true party supporters and the electorate.

To understand the PNP Party’s current internal battle lines and what’s at stake, it’s important to know how we got here.

After a few years of awful Labour government, where Edward Seaga's policies left us in the maw of the United States and the IMF. Then P.J. Patterson emerged and proved to be just the type of rhetoric for the average citizen, “black man time now!” and in terms of action proved to be the politician neoliberalists loved. Patterson settled into office in the early 90s as the leader of path breaking New PNP. This wasn't you grandma's socialist PNP it was populist in every way. Many media outlets hailed him as a visionary statesman who had overcome left-leaning socialist Manley left in his wake and set the party straight.

Those days Patterson seemed a youthful and articulate, breath of fresh air and boost of collective confidence after a long colonial experience and the repugnant politics of calling a people “black scandal bag” as Mr Seaga had seem to have done. Yet for all his rhetoric Mr. Patterson was down with corporate power—not as far down as today's Government, but nevertheless in the thrall of big business and the big banks.

Patterson's neo-liberal policies went over big with moneyed interests, its policy pursuits would end up driving a wedge between the PNP Party and the working class. Of course the guys driving Patterson's economic train loved the North American Free Trade Agreement. Why wouldn’t they? Workers were costs, not people. Corporate trade deals were profit boosters. Downsides and job cuts rocked Jamaica while local production and manufacturing tool a hit.

Weeks after joining NAFTA Jamaica's milk began to spoil. Go watch “Life and Debt”.

This is the point at which the electorate truly would diverge from the PNP, though Mr. Patterson would woo the public every few years at election time, he had to continuously court a people who new he had switched. The PNP no longer cared for the proletariat nor new what the word meant.

The PNP newcomers ushered in by Mr. Patterson “are don’t-rock-the-boat” types, and they are exactly what private sector and transnational business types. A far cry from yesterday's PNP socialism. Now socialism is experiencing a tremendous resurgence in the 21st century due to the growing economic disparity, anger at the establishment and charismatic older socialist politicians like Bernie Sanders in the U.S. and Jeremy Corbyn in the U.K. who gathered massive support from the young. A new wave of socialist thinkers is also beginning to emerge that looks to distance the movement from the historical stigma to formulate a new socialism that speaks to the challenges of today.

The Ghosts of the new PNP and how they behaved in office—and the electoral disasters that ensued are grimly acute. Until the wave of socialism is endorsed in some way by the PNP they will not excite the imagination of the youth and the electorate. However I suspect that this PNP more concern with playing PR and social media catch up with the JLP whilst maintaining an image of success and air of professionalism.

Now, the New PNP and those walking in their footsteps are battling to retain control of the party and the government. The agenda of the new PNP best serves in the long run to choke off democracy as much as possible, lest the riffraff get away with undermining the ruling elites. Let’s face it: Democracy is dangerous to the powerful who rely on big money, institutional leverage and mass media to work their will. The insurgencies of this decade against economic injustice—embodied in international movements like the Occupy movement and then Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign—are potentially dire threats to the established unjust social and economic order.

For those determined to retain their positions in the upper reaches of the PNP Party hierarchy, democracy within the party sounds truly scary. And inauthenticity of the party—and its corresponding heavy losses of seats from Parliament to the councils—don’t seem nearly as worrisome to the PNP party elites as the prospect that upsurges of grass-roots activities might remove them from their privileged quarters.


About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Community Activist and Law Student at Utech Western Jamaica. Follow Yannick on Twitter at @yahnyk | yannickpessoa@yahoo.com

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Starring: Ashton "Tickle Puss" Beckford as Tickle Puss
Directed & Produce by Yannick Nesta Pessoa of Rastar Studios
Camera Man: Yannick Nesta Pessoa

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