I asked two weeks ago if the JLP was a responsible or weak opposition, well the signs are emerging of a weak Andrew Holness fighting to keep his position, but will be challenged and I believe ousted at the next annual conference.
The party official also said that Holness is showing poor judgement and insecurity by surrounding himself with Robertson and Montague as his “palace guards”.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/JLP-dismay-_14069932#ixzz2QWqMH6zg
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Warren's Blog 
Jay, they are quite late in coming to that conclusion!! I have been saying that for two years. His response is a natural reaction by those who have been schooled in “old style” politics because in their minds it is their time now. Not because they have much to contribute but because in their little heads, they have “paid their dues”. Portia is one good example?
Sam Sharpe, Mr. Holness may have been a good education Minister if you assess some of his policies like the Centres of Excellence programme; but he is a poor leader. I usally like leaders who are able to control themselves and others, but Holness does not command the respect of most of his colleagues and he continues to isolate them
Lipton, that was why a leadership contest is vital! Allow the people to see what they have to offer in an environment that is not “sanitized”. The jlp hierarchy and a complicit media tried to pull a fast one on the Jamaican public. As i expected, it is backfiring. The leadership of the jlp has been complicit in the destruction of our Country by the pnp.
The JLP reminds me of a cantankerous person who all they do all day long is tear down whatever passes in front of their eyes, muttering that they can do better- yet when they get the chance, its proven that they are indeed worse. With that pit of vipers, Andrew cannot survive. Not that I want him too because he was never my choice. Way too obnoxious and aloof from my observations up close in situations not political. As far as I am concerned, the jLP got what they deserve because they were too cute by half shoving Holness down Jamaica;s throat with that farce of a coronation. Tufton is the man for me, everybody else pales in comarison. Gal a yaad doesn’t command respect from anybody but the “dutty gal” section of the JLP though the business types might hold their nose and pull the lever for him because he is a gasbag that is easily controllable. The only other person capable would be Vaz. Bartlett is finally acting like a grown up, but its a situation of too little too late. None of the others have any sort of achievment, inside or outside of politics, NONE!
That my dear chaps is a sterling example of a paucity of choices.
Tufton is the best bet for the JLP and as such he should challenge Andrew Holness at the next party conference.
Andrew Holness is a “kitty” – meow, meow. 🙂
A leader of the opposition in the Senate? Unlikely. And given that Tufton lost his house seat, I don’t expect that even if he did challenge Andrew that he would be successful. Tufton has two strikes against him; he lost his house seat and he is a former NDM man. Holness represents a new generation of the the dinosaurs in the JLP (the old guard Seaga types – after all, his mentor is Seaga!). After Bruce, it is doubtful the JLP will want to experiment with an NDM man again so soon. They tried it before and it failed spectacularly and thus leaves a taint on anybody who could be painted with the same brush.
Any challenge is more likely to come from those who have the ambition of leading the JLP (which Tufton does not seem to have; he seems like Baugh in a way…content to do what he is doing and maybe wait for the right opportunity). Thus, Andrew had better watch out lest one of his “palace guards” turn on him and challenge him for the position.
It would be a welcome surprise though if there actually was a leadership challenge at the next annual conference because the JLP is long overdue for an actual contested vote for the leadership position. It wouldn’t surprise me though if there is no challenge and the cracks are just papered over before, during and after the conference because not having a contested leadership election has almost become a tradition.
We are in deep shit then, because unless Tufton is at the helm we will continue to be governed by Roger Clarke and Company.
But it wouldn’t matter anyway Sam, because unless Tufton is going to pull a Fidel-style rebellion he has very little chance of leading the JLP and more remotely of leading Jamaica. I see Shaw’s name brought up more often as a possible contender for the JLP leadership position in the papers (reputedly by inside sources in the party).
Because Shaw is malleable. The status quo is using the media prostitutes to test the waters. Philosophically a Fidel type revolution is needed in Jamaica because after years of billions of FDI nothing much has changed. Tufton has the intellect and courage to transform Jamaica. I think he actually is positioned quite well to attain leadership. He was seen as the most trusted politician in the previous administration and i am absolutely sure that he would trounce holness convincingly in a leadership battle.
You have to remember that the delegates =/= wider public. While you might think Tufton has leadership potential and you might like Tufton, the fact is that within the organization of the JLP Tufton would have many handicaps that he would have to overcome to be viewed as a serious challenger to the mentored-by-Seaga Holness:
1. Not having a seat in parliament. If he challenged Holness and won it would mean Tufton would be leader of the JLP while someone else (possibly Holness) remained Leader of the Opposition in parliament. I can think of only one other instance in local history where that occurred and it was not because of a leadership challenge, it was because Norman Manley lost his seat in an election and had to wait for another election while Glasspole served as leader of opposition business in the house. IF Tufton won he would then require one of the current JLP MPs to resign from their seat so he could run in a by-election. This presents problems because we all know that many of the current lot would see hell freeze over first before giving up their seat to Tufton. For instance can you imagine Warmington doing such a thing? Or Shaw? Nope. Tufton’s best bet might be William Hutchinson (NW St. Elizabeth), Delroy Chuck (NE St. Andrew) or Ken Baugh (West Central St. Catherine). And given that Tufton lost to the “political might” of Hugh Buchanan in 2011 in SW St. Elizabeth (and I say that quite sarcastically), there would have to be some fears that he could face a repeat unless he ran in a super-safe seat (i.e. a garrison constituency) and of course none of the holders of such seats would really be willing to give them up……..
2. Having been a part of the NDM. At the moment the Seaga-followers are basically in control in the JLP even if there might be infighting among themselves (note I said “might”). The prospects of another NDM man leading are slim.
3. Not having an intimate relationship with garrison politics. Tufton would need to win over a majority of delegates. Some of these delegates are the “Shower delegates” as we saw in May 2010 when these delegates appeared at Vale Royal during Bruce Golding’s crisis talks during the Manatt-Dudus saga.
4. Not having traction with the “presstitutes”. Sure he is mentioned, but he is mentioned less than Shaw (or even Montague if Wignall is anything to go by, but I don’t believe Wignall is anything to go by). He was also mentioned less than Holness in 2011. It is quite likely that the press is merely reiterating the favoured choices of garrison elements (including elements of questionable legality) as well as big business (the two main backers in the current JLP). Unless Tufton is seen as a Yes-Man for both of these backers he is unlikely to get their support and will find his press coverage being more sparse than other potential challengers.
Buchanan was “schooled” well in politrix. I suspect that he cannot repeat this victory. I really do not think our Country needs a leader aligned to a garrison. We have seen what that has bred and the only solution to that problem would be a re-alignment of constituency boundaries in a deliberate way. Maybe for the first time in our history contenders would have to prepare development plans for the constituencies?? While i do agree with your assessment of the the challenges, i think our people are getting a bit more sophisticated in their assessment of politics. It is about time that “big business” understands that “a rising tide lifts all boats”, instead of catering to the further impoverishment of the nation? Shaw and Montague are not viable options for Jamaica even with the “presstitudes”(Good one) backing.
Again, what you think the country needs =/= what is realistically possible. Apart from PJ Patterson no recent Prime Minister had a seat outside of Kingston and lower St. Andrew. And all of Kingston parish proper and most of lower St. Andrew constitutes garrison constituencies or constituencies which contain small garrisons. It seems both parties have abandoned the idea that the leader of the party (and potential prime minister) should run in anything but a garrison or at least a safe seat. Even after Holness became prime minister there was talk that he should run in West Kingston, which died down for various reasons (I suspect Holness rightly felt that leaving the seat he has won 3 times prior to 2011 would risk upsetting JLP supporters in that seat and risk them staying home….that seat for him was and is safe).
And I agree that only a re-alignment of constituency boundaries (and a re-alignment that occurs every decade) to deliberately ensure all the constituencies are changed radically will help politics in this country as it would encourage competitive politics (instead of lazy politics) and force politicians to prepare better campaigns and possibly stick to the campaign promises if they want to win sure re-election the next time before the next major seismic shift in constituency borders. Unlikely to happen though unless there is a large-scale grassroots campaign for such a change and for such a change to be put to a referendum and incorporated into the constitution (via legal entrenchment).
And while the electorate might be getting more sophisticated in their assessment of politics, one has to remember that the delegates at any party conference (whether JLP or PNP) are only a subset of the wider electorate and are unlikely to represent the characteristics of said wider electorate. After all, party conferences tend to be attended by party members and party members by definition tend to occupy only one end of the spectrum of views shown by the wider population. That is why in the US, the Republican and Democratic hopefuls seem more right-wing and left-wing respectively during the nomination races than in the presidential or congressional races….because they have to appeal to their party bases which are often more extreme and less centrist in their views than the wider public. So before Tufton can get to appeal to the sophistication of the wider public he must first appeal to the delegates who will often have different priorities than the wider public. While the wider public might look on Tufton v Portia in terms of the price of bread, the dollar’s free floating exchange rate and economic growth and jobs (even though neither can really have any major impact on the price of bread or the dollar’s exchange rate within the current policy of allowing for a free floating dollar – we have just fooled ourselves into thinking the government can and should be able to do everything and control everything), the delegates will look on Tufton v Shaw in terms of party donor support and what they can promise for the delegates.
Big business looks out for big business first and big business last. They don’t need a rising tide to lift all boats if they can pay a man to lift their boat alone ahead of everyone else and the tide. The nature of big business makes it unlikely that many will willingly abstain from trying to essentially bribe politicians into giving them favourable treatment (tax breaks, waivers, etc) once in power. The way around it is for transparent funding of the political parties so people can who is funding whom or to ban private funding of the political parties and require parties to be either state funded (i.e. everyone funds them out of tax revenue – not an idea I support since parties are essentially private entities) or require transparent funding of political parties AND require that parties can only fund themselves via membership dues and perhaps transparent fund-raising charitable events.
Jon, what i am proposing is realistically possible. The fact that holness did not choose tivoli is indicative of a shift in thinking. Kingston is not Jamaica. The majority of us,(silent majority) exist outside of the political process and as a result we have left the political arena to rabid partisans. More of us need to be involved and as a result influence political processes, not co-opted into the “system”. Historically the status quo will always respond to needed changes when it is demanded by the majority, as they have more to lose. We have been tinkering around the edges of our political system for decades and the trajectory has been consistent. It is the Government’s responsibility to conceptualize and implement policies that are consistent with economic success. The value of any currency is determined by the demand and since we produce little relative to our consumption then it follows that ours is not worth crap. This behavior has been consistent for decades and we continue to borrow to maintain what they consider a “credible” rate. This script needs to be flipped? If we followed the mainstream media for the last few months one would think that our biggest problem is getting the imf seal of approval? We have serious structural deficiencies and it will take courage and conviction from the leadership this Country to address this. These two traits do not reside in shaw,portia et al. They are “politicians” not leaders.
Can’t agree with you more, but the problem is that the true leaders are unlikely to emerge as long as the silent majority (of those who are unregistered or do not bother to vote even if registered) remain silent. But given that apathy has set in and many are just looking out for themselves it will take a lot for such a radical shift.