Opinion
- Editorial- Commentary
Selwyn
Ryan: The
'Portia' factor
Everyone
agrees that there was a "Portia
Factor" which explains the outcome of the
recent Jamaican elections. There is however no
agreement on what that factor was. Political obituarists
variously identify "time for a change" sentiment,
class, culture, race, money, religion, media bias,
the vanity of the leader, intra-party factionalism,
gender, poor performance in the TV debates, Hurricane
Dean, political accidents, and much else.
There is however agreement that had the elections
been held in March 2006 she would have swept the
polls. Portia however wanted to reunify the party
after the bruising battle that had just been waged
with Finance Minister Omar Davies and Minister
of National Security, Dr Peter Phillips whom most
parliamentarians supported as the successor to
PJ Patterson. In politics, however, the unexpected
and the unscripted often happens. Portia performed
badly in the budget debate, and the party was also
rocked by major corruption scandals.
In trying to explain why Portia did not call the
election early, some analysts speculate that she
feared that even if she won the general election,
the parliamentary arm might have staged a coup
against her by indicating to the Governor General
that Dr Phillips was the person who commanded their
support in parliament and not the party president.
That was of course constitutionally possible,
but most agree that it would have been politically
indigestible, especially having regard to the fact
that none of Portia's rivals had the popular support
required to ensure a PNP victory. It may however
be that Portia feared that her colleagues were
conspiring against her, and that she wanted to
ensure that she had her own troops.
It seems that Portia's vanity had convinced her
that she could prevail in any election on the basis
of her own charisma. Her own vanity may have led
her to this conclusion. Portia also verily believed
that she was ordained by God to be Jamaica's leader.
She
thus functioned as a virtual "gang of
one". The inevitable result was that all the
guns of the opposition were trained on her, and
it became progressively clear to the public that
she was all form and posture and little substance
and not up to the demands of the office.
Portia's manner of responding to the many attacks
also confirmed that she lacked the class, gravitas,
and linguistic competence that Jamaicans associated
with the office of Prime Minister, and that she
was a bit of a boonoononos or a quashie. She
angrily warned her detractors that she was not
a saint, and that they should not "draw
mi tongue". If they attacked her, she would
respond, which she did with all the feistiness
of which she was capable. The Jamaican gentry
thumbed their noses at her. "Who let the
maid in?" they fumed. Manley had let the
gardeners into the PNP mansion; PJ had done worse
and let the maid in! God Lord! What was Jamaica
coming to!
The response of the gentry led some Jamaicans
to say that class and culture were masks which
Jamaicans used as euphemisms to conceal the fact
that the ancestral shadows still lengthened over
the plantation. Scratch a browning, some say, and
one will find a white (or not quite white (NQW))
skin beneath. This notion is sharply contested
by the Jamaican middle class. Whether one saw race
or class depended a great deal on whether one was
looking at Jamaica with a worm's eye or a bird's
eye. The former saw race and the other saw class.
Many
of Portia's critics were alienated by her claim
that she had divine credentials whatever
might be thought of her academic credentials. She
was also led to believe this by Dr Phillip Phinn,
senior pastor of the Word of Life Ministries who
told her that she was God's choice to be prime
minister of Jamaica for the next seven years. The
prophecy split the powerful Pentecostal God Squad,
some members of which challenged Phinn when he
explained that the symbolic number "7" was
an important dimension of his prophecy. Thus the
choice of August 27 for the date of the election
a date which Hurricane Dean caused to be changed.
It is now being said that Phinn misunderstood God's
prophecy and that what the prophecy meant was that
Portia would be Prime Minister for 17 months and
not seven years. In any case, say the wags, Phinn
is Phinnished, as is Portia.
The outcome of the election was also shaped a
great deal by money much of which had shifted to
the JLP, with the result that the PNP did not have
the resources to answer the very clever attack
ads of the well-oiled JLP machine. The JLP controlled
the air and in the end money trumped boots. The
JLP was also assisted by the media which was accused
of leaning in its direction, particularly in their
editorials and cartoons.
Portia was however a clear beneficiary of the gender
dividend, notwithstanding the disposition of
the gentrified ladies. Underclass women came
to "Mama" in large numbers as they
were urged to. This was also true of underclass
males. The support of this proletarian element
in fact served to prevent Portia from being wiped
out completely as she would have been by the
powerful "time for a change" sentiment.
Many in Jamaica were of the view that 18 years
in power was too long for any party to be in
power.
Whatever the reasons for her defeat, and the various
factors clearly reinforced each other, it is clear
that Portia put up a manly fight. In the end, however,
she fought virtually alone, abandoned by the big
men in the party and the women too. It is however
worth remarking that Portia lost by only 3,000
votes. She was a flawed heroine, but a powerful
one nonetheless, and will remain a fixed icon in
Jamaica's colourful post-emancipation political
history.
Selwyn
Ryan is
a columnist for the Trinidad Express. Petroleumworld
not necessarily share these
views.
Editor's
Note: This article was first publish in Trinidad
Express, Sunday 16th September, 2007 . Petroleumworld
reprint this article in the interest
of our readers.
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Petroleumworld
09/16/07
Copyright ©2006
Selwyn
Ryan.
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