The vie for the leadership of the JLP has suddenly energized the once comatose JLP and the opposition has finally found the voice many of us have been asking for a long time.
Andrew Holness after the two massive defeat, must have felt like a schmuck and when Portia Simpson Miller declared him an ” enemy of the state”, it literally knocked the wind out of his sail. Andrew Holness went into hibernation and so did the opposition, only rising to speak now and again, while the PNP continued the hack job, right where they left off in 2007 having been interrupted briefly by the JLP.
This blog subsequently started to examine Andrew Holness and though I realized that he appeared to have the leadership skills Jamaica needed , he firstly needed to present an argument to win an election and I simply could not find that.
I recognized that Andrew Holness and the JLP would be no match for Portia Simpson Miller, PJ Patterson and a slick and an effective PNP election machinery and there-after called for a leadership challenge at the upcoming conference.
This is what I wrote back then, June 25, 2013
Who is charge of the JLP and who should the public be listening to?
If Andrew Holness cannot take charge of his dysfunctional party then he should step aside and allow someone with “balls” to take on the leadership. At a time when the ruling PNP is floundering like a fish on shore and gasping for air, the opposition JLP is offering no leadership to the country and cannot even act the part of a good opposition.
I do hope that Andrew Holness will be challenged at the party’s annual General Conference and loses or he steps aside before the conference and allow the party to elect a real leader.
PSM as bad as she is (and she is really a poor choice for a leader), has more “balls” that Mr Holness.
Andrew Holness cannot and should not be allowed to be leader in the run up to the next election as the JLP will be decimated and will be condemned to the status of opposition for sometime to come and Jah know say we simply cannot allow that to happen.
That post was written long before this challenge emerged , because I had come to the realization, that Andrew Holness could not lead the JLP to victory.
Now that the campaign is on in earnest, Mr Holness appears to have surrounded himself with persons from the old school and some of the very same persons who made sure the JLP stayed in opposition for 18.5yrs. The ” new and different stance suddenly appears to have evaporated and has been replaced by the rambunctious and tracing normally associated with Audley Shaw, WTF.
Now paradoxically Audley Shaw has been surrounded by the reformist and young persons in the party and his campaign has been characterized by a calm, calculated and focused approach and devoid of the tracing we have come to expect from Audley’s camp. In fact Audley’s camp is more behaving like how the Holness camp was expected to behave .
What is interesting is the Audley Camp is far more effective that the Holness camp in getting the message across and have not only been able to capture the attention of the grassroots supporters, but also the monied class.
This is proof that Holness never had to change his approach, what was needed from him all along, was for him to get to reach out to the base of the party and start the process of rebuilding the party, while becoming more vocal on national issues and making the government and the general public hear his voice.
There is old saying ” fire deh a muss muss tail im tink a cool breeze”. That is what happened to Holness and the JLP simply cannot take that chance with Holness, because if he were to win this leadership race, he would crawl back into his shell, thus allowing the PNP to continue its destructive ways , which is not something Jamaica can afford at this time.
So how did Audley begin acting like Holness and become more effective than Holness was, being himself .
The JLP needs someone to win, you cannot run the country unless you win an election and the truth is, even though we believe holness is a future leader he must win.
The PNP is no different, they all no Portia is a very poor leader, but what she can do and has done is to win an election, thus getting the PNP in power, that is the cold hard facts.
There is no point taking bout how much potential someone has , when the fact is they cannot get in a position to truly demonstrate this.
Filed under: Politics, Public Information |
Warren's Blog 
Whilst I like Audley for leader I am not impressed with the team he has around him. The strike me as a bunch of losers. They all won their seats in 2007 and arrogance and laziness put them out in 2011. they were so besotted with the ‘Hon’ title that their constituents could not speak to them and if they were able to and did not address them as the Hon, they would tell them off. Shaw or no Shaw most of them cannot win back those seats.
You have those who fell they should have been given Senatorship or shadow – plain bitterness, Mr Shaw better watch him back because if he gets the leadership and can’t win the election, I am sorry for him. Opportunists have no loyalty and can be dangerous!
You know even when Holness tries to level with the people and speak patios, you get the sense he is uncomfortable and its just not his comfort zone.
Once we continue to allow the “dinosaurs” to “groom” for political leadership we will continue to our steady decline. Holness’ rants are no different from a child who has marbles and wants to play with the other kids but once he starts losing he wants to end the game. Where is the CRY for Constitutional reform allowing us to vote directly for the leader of our Country?? How can one support a guy who has ostracized intellect and brilliance and surrounds himself with looneys who have contributed significantly to the decline of our Country? Having press conferences surrounded by the Tivoli Ambassador to the USA et al does not instill much confidence in us having a viable opposition.