Golding says Phillips has crucial role to play
THE skills of Dr Peter Phillips will be sought to play an advisory role in the future development of the People’s National Party (PNP), if presidential aspirant Mark Golding has any say in the matter.
Golding, in a late week interview with the Jamaica Observer, underlined his respect for the outgoing president of the 82-year-old PNP, adding that Phillips’ knowledge of the Jamaican landscape placed him in an advantageous position from which the party can learn many things.
“Peter has tremendous understanding of the Jamaican society and history,” said Golding. “He is a brilliant man in his own right. He also has a tremendous network of contacts that he has made over the years, so he can play an important role of guiding and supporting the leadership of the party by allowing us to benefit from his knowledge and experience, much in the way that PJ Patterson still plays — an important role like that.”
Patterson, who retired as prime minister and president of the PNP in 2006, has maintained his contact with the party that he continues to support, going over six decades.
It was Patterson, and former Cabinet minister and Member of Parliament Burchell Whiteman who only days ago made recommendations to the party in respect of, among other things, procedures that could be followed during the transitional period.
Golding said that while like Patterson, Dr Phillips was not expected to be involved in the daily grind of attracting people to the embattled organisation which won only 14 seats in the Legislature at the end of the September 3 General Election — the other 49 in the 63-seat House of Representatives going to the Jamaica Labour Party – having the former finance minister serving in an advisory capacity would serve the party well.
“Him having retired, I don’t think he would want to be in front line politics,” Golding suggested of the former finance minister, who is credited with strengthening the financial walls of the economy between 2012 and 2016.
As for why the PNP lost the September 3 election, which confirmed the resignation of Dr Phillips, Golding, a lawyer and businessman who will likely face MP Lisa Hanna as the other candidate in the race for party president, put it down to a combination of factors.
“Our organisation primarily, we have allowed it, to the point where it is no longer, on election day, able to deliver what is required to win an election.
“Financing of the party has been a struggle. In popularity terms we were up against Andrew Holness who has become a very popular person and we lacked a clear message as to where we were going. Our manifesto was published quite late and I don’t think there was enough time to get people to understand it and buy into it.
“So it was a range of factors at play. We had gone through leadership challenges which had left some perceived unsettled issues. On the ground there was a perception that the leadership was not as united as they should have been, though as far as I was concerned we were all pulling together.
“We did have that issue where we wanted to meet with the leader, we had that meeting and it was a great meeting. Some adjustments were made that made the team more cohesive, so the unity issue was not one of substance.”
Golding commented that there were still things that needed to be fixed, insisting that “if we still hold on to tribes within the party, we have nowhere going”.