‘NO PANIC’
Don’t declare funeral on PNP, say Henry-Wilson, others
CHAIRMAN OF the People’s National Party (PNP) unity committee, Maxine Henry-Wilson, has conceded that Friday’s mass resignations have set back the campaign to heal the political wounds that have persisted from the two most recent internal leadership races.
But even as PNP President Mark Golding struggles to find firm footing eight months into his reign, Henry-Wilson has played down talk of an apocalyptic crisis after Chairman Phillip Paulwell and vice-presidents Damion Crawford, Dr Wykeham McNeill, and Mikael Phillips jumped ship on the eve of nominations.
“We are always going to have hiccups. Some may not be seen as significant as what
took place on Friday, but I don’t think there should be any cause for panic,” she said.
Henry-Wilson, a former general secretary, said the party leader has expressed regret at the latest episode but believes there is a way for the party to chart forward.
“We are running on a programme of readiness for local government [elections], but more fundamentally, it is a programme which has allowed the party to find a way of reconnecting with its members and supporters at the constituency and divisional level,” said Henry-Wilson.
In a joint statement, the quartet had said that the resignations were done to “avoid a further widening of the internal rift ”and“another divisive internal election”, but they scolded the leadership for failing to unify the party.
PNP Youth Organisation President Krystal Tomlinson also quit.
Henry-Wilson’s sliver of optimism is corroborated by commentator Lloyd B. Smith, who warned political watchers to call off the PNP’s funeral.
“I think the Opposition Leader Mark Golding needs to stop being Mr Nice Guy, and also the move that the four men took was done, I think, primarily on a personal basis, more so than on a party basis, and I think they are looking at their own survival in the party under a Mark Golding leadership,” Smith, a former member of parliament for St James Central, told The Gleaner.
“The fact is that it would have been expected that everyone would have been out of the race until so nominated, and to resign on the eve of the nomination being closed suggests to me that it wasn’t a matter of preserving anything to do with the PNP, but preserving themselves.”
Smith also believes that General Secretary Dayton Campbell’s charge of the delegates’ list was problematic as he has been a loyalist of Golding and a force for the Rise United faction.
Political commentator Shalman Scott is also cautioning Labourites not to place wreaths on the tombstone of the PNP just yet.
Scott said that internal tension among party members was “nothing new”, likening it to the cleavages that led to the infamous expulsion of the four Hs in the 1950s but which did not prevent the PNP from scoring successive pre-Independence general election victories.
The ruling Jamaica Labour Party has itself suffered political rifts that threatened to rip the movement apart. Notable among those have been the Gang of Five and Gang of Eleven intrigues after 1989, and the rebellion against then Opposition Leader Andrew Holness in 2015.
But Holness managed to placate his political rivals and win the 2016 general election and delivered a thumping at the polls four years later to give his party 49 of the 63 seats in Parliament. (That majority has decreased by one after George Wright became an independent.)
“It is not as bad as some of the previous happenings or activities between the two major parties, and so there is no need for any exaggeration or panic because all that the members have done is to withdraw from their position of responsibility, or titles, that they hold within the party but are still inside of their party,” said Scott.
“And those who are anxious to believe that this is the beginning of the end of the PNP, they are to pay attention to the fact that the PNP is not yet a sunken ship.”
Long-time PNP supporters in Admiral Town and Arnett Gardens, communities in the St Andrew South political stronghold of PNP President Mark Golding, said they were displeased by the high-profile resignation of senior party members, are assured that the party will regain political footing.
Fifty-six-year-old shopkeeper Jestina Taylor said she was shaken up by the news of the resignations.
“It seems like dem don’t want our MP. However, to how him deal with his constituency, and how him help with elderly and poor people, I feel seh him will continue to be a good president,” she said.
POWER STRUGGLE
Taylor highlighted that she would be praying for Golding and the wider PNP as the party seeks to recover from the current crisis.
Anthony Folkes summed up the nucleus of the crisis as a power struggle.
He believes Golding has been making an effort to unite the party, but some members are opposed to his vision.
“In terms of the resignation of the four senior members, it’s pretty much disappointing, but maybe it’s for the good, for the new leader to reshuffle and get some vibrant people who put the People’s National Party agenda at the forefront of their minds,” Folkes told The Gleaner on Sunday.
Folkes said in every internal election, the likelihood of a rift developing is very high.
“At the time, he was the right choice for PNP leader. When he came to this constituency for the first time, I told him, ‘Mr Golding, you’re gonna be the leader of this party’. I think that even if he loses an election to Mr Holness, dem nuh fi give up pan Mr Golding because him have prime minister inna him,” the resident of 40 years said.
Another resident, Neba Johnson, expressed disappointment at the haemorrhaging around the party president.
“The PNP, over the years, has had problems. We have seen it before with Portia Simpson-Miller, with Peter Phillips and the list goes on. Some disappointment is for good and maybe God is trying to elevate him. The lack of unity is overwhelming and we here in South St Andrew, we are trying to stand with him,” Johnson shared.
For Karen Spratt, the party can do well without the members who recently resigned and she is not concerned about its future.
“A whole heap a time dem try this and we come back, suh me nuh worried,” she said.