When leaders don’t lead
Dear editor,
It was mighty magnanimous of the “emperor”, err... prime minister, to forgo the unreasonable and unconscionable truck load of money that Nigel Clarke backed up to his door.
After the Jamaica Labour Pary (JLP) Government lobbed the People’s National Party (PNP) the perfect platform to topple them from power, Mark Golding predictably botched the response and lobbed a soft ball back to the JLP, and Andrew hit it out of the park.
Mark will give up 80 per cent, well, Andrew promptly oneupped him and said he would take none.
Just to be clear, these were two weak and disingenuous gestures. Golding can clearly afford it, but he was unable to corral his charges into a cohesive, political landscape-changing moment, by collectively rejecting the excessive increase and, in so doing, make a clear statement to the country that the PNP is about serving the people not about pilfering from them. Instead, Golding made the weak 80/20 move and allowed his colleague Members of Parliament (MP) to keep their increased salaries.
Just imagine if the PNP MPS en masse had said we will collectively accept only 20 per cent. The rest of the funds earmarked for us should be used to supplement teachers’ salaries or whatever other worthy cause they could have chosen.
To Golding’s move Andrew Holness said, “Whew, we dodged a bullet.” So the “Emperor” comes out today and said I will not take a dime of increase. An absolutely meaningless gesture.
If Holness wanted to show that he had listened to the people he should have said, “Neither myself nor any of my MPS will accept this increase.” That would be listening and acting according to the will of the people.
Instead, Holness reinforced that his charges should take the money and, in his most disingenuous act as prime minister, said, in solidarity with the will of the people, I will instruct them to remove the prime minister’s increase. Really now!
You do not govern on your own. You lead a team. The right thing to do was to instruct your team to follow your lead and not take the money.
It’s a shame that our Opposition is tone deaf and politically unsavvy. Not to mention that they could use a good public relations strategist. Golding missed a golden opportunity to ‘frame the conversation’ from now to the next election. This was his opportunity to get the country on his side. But, once again, Holness proved to be a more astute politician, and clearly has better media and public relations strategists than the PNP.
In addition, Holness scored major points with his team by defending their unconscionable new salaries while Golding increased the level of discord within his party and weakened his own position as leader by leaving his MPS on their own to decide whether or not to take the money.