PJ is costing Portia votes

Published in the Jamaicca Gleaner: Sunday | August 12, 2007

Dawn Ritch, Columnist

About two months ago, a close associate of former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson dropped in at my office. Patterson has several close associates, many of whom have never run for elective office. They are invariably cheerful and charming people. But he really should never have become prime minister because he was a disaster at it - good at winning elections but a terrible prime minister.

This particular associate wanted me to explain to him why Mrs. Simpson Miller never visits the former Prime Minister, except in the company of others.

Age is a wonderful thing. It has given even me a poker face. Are you suggesting, I asked him, that the current prime minister has never had a private meeting with the former one?

No, no, no he said. In the beginning she met with him alone, but that stopped almost immediately. She doesn't even call him, the associate complained, and he has lots of advice he could give her. But Patterson is not going to give her this advice, he said, when she's in the company of others.

Who are those 'others'? I asked. He replied that they were usually Cabinet ministers and sometimes party officers. So what's wrong with that, I wondered.

He replied that Patterson feels disrespected, and the friend wanted me to tell Mrs. Simpson Miller that "P.J.'s door is always open to her". She can telephone him at any time, or come to see him privately, because he can advise her.

What kind of advice is that? Gleefully, the friend said, "Like when to call elections!"

I told him that I rarely see Mrs. Simpson Miller, and that's how it's always been. We speak on the phone only occasionally, and in all the years we've been friends, I've neverbeen in the habit of giving her advice.

Calling on cronies

So I quickly changed the subject. I asked him to explain how a political party, a behemoth like the People's National Party (PNP), could have any debt at all, much less one of $12 million left behind by the Patterson regime. How could the party be short of funds?

He was delighted with the question and sat eagerly on the edge of his chair. "That's what I'm telling you about, Dawn" he said, "Portia won't pick up the phone and call anybody . . . and you know there are supporters who got highly lucrative contracts from the Government. But she won't pick up the phone and call any of them. Not one of them has heard from her. What she's doing is totally preposterous, and you must tell her so!"

Naturally I didn't bother. My own view is that if Mrs. Simpson Miller was calling neither Patterson nor his cronies, that was a bold, brave and necessary step. That she was having no private meetings with him either, was even better news yet.

I suggested to my visitor, however, that since the new Prime Minister was female, they should all behave like gentlemen and not expect her to call them up. Do as Walter Raleigh did, I said, and spread your coats across the puddles so that she gets the money for the general election. I told him she'd be in for 20 years.

He seemed intrigued by the idea, but unsure. I somehow doubt that he delivered my message, because I still don't see the money.

That is all to the good. The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has huge billboards, some with Bruce Golding's face, erected all over the island. There are some little PNP ones here and there. The PNP is only now beginning to run a few ads. I can only conclude from this that Mrs. Simpson Miller is still not having any private conversations with Mr. Patterson. He, however, has suddenly crawled out of the woodwork.

I think it's a piece of nerve for Patterson to go on Portia's platform, and bring no money with him. It's just like the time in 2002 when Golding came back to Seaga's platformin the JLP. It was claimed internally that Golding was bringing $10 million with him from a private sector happy to see his return. But both he and Patterson are all hat and no cattle.

Let the record show that in the General Election of 2002, all JLP candidates had their subventions for election-day expenses cut by $430,000 each. So much for the cattle Bruce was supposed to bring to that election.

Now that Edward Seaga has departed, I see Golding has a very fine herd of cattle, indeed. Pity he didn't give some of it to the party for the election of 2002. The country could have been spared another five years of Patterson.

It takes someone cheeky like Patterson himself to recall the old Jamaican proverb 'Don't give hungry belly man yuh food to carry'. Here is the man who, before his departure, gave himself and all his predecessors a pension matching that of any sitting prime minister, present or future. His belly certainly isn't hungry, and has never been. And no, I don't want him to carry my food.

Wherever Patterson goes, Golding should join him - a perpetual Prime Minister and a perpetual Opposition leader. Neither is emotionally prepared to accept a well-deserved oblivion.

Prolonged internal struggle

Mrs. Simpson Miller has got where she is today, despite the odds and against the odds of wealth, hierarchy and position. If Patterson wanted her to succeed him, he would have called the internal election two years ago. Instead, he prolonged the internal campaign, eventually putting up the ridiculous candidacy of Dr. Omar Davies, after Dr. Peter Phillips proved a predictable disappointment.

Since Patterson didn't want her to get it, why is he so anxious to sit on her stage? It's time for him to clear off. He's costing her votes. Why does he say he wants to hold her hand now, when he didn't before?

But then I guess that applies to a lot of people I see standing around her. Where were they 18 months ago? It was sound judgment on her part to make nearly half of her candidates newcomers to politics. She will need them.