There is never a dull moment in Jamaica and this election period is proving it.

First it was People's National Party's (PNP) mammoth mass rally in Half-Way Tree last Sunday, the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) cancellation of theirs on Monday, and the health of the Prime Minister that dominated the news early last week. Then by mid-week the JLP fired a salvo that sent tongues wagging throughout the length and breadth of the country.

The JLP played its ace card - Bruce Golding.

The man who had walked away from the JLP in 1995 with a mission to rid the political system in Jamaica of the "tribalisms and corruption and the tyranny which it has come to represent," has returned to the party.

So Jamaicans are fired up by these developments in the country's politics especially as their date with the ballots gets closer.

But if we follow the JLP then and the National Democratic Movement (NDM) now, Bruce Golding is the biggest villain in Jamaica. When he left the JLP in 1995 the party accused him of running off with JLP ideas for the nation. Now Brascoe Lee, talking to Cliff Hughes on the Nationwide radio programme Thursday night, said that Mr. Golding took with him to the JLP, "the whole roll of fabric" belonging to the NDM.

This man, Mr. Golding, probably possesses the hide of a rhino. Either that or he has such a big heart that he is able to rise above the political whacking that he got in 1995 and that which he is getting now.

A cantankerous-sounding Seaga, declared in October 1995 that it should not be a problem for the NDM to find a new symbol, and suggested that "30 pieces of silver will do."

Two months later, he said to delegates at the JLP's annual conference that Mr. Golding has no stomach for leadership.

On Thursday, a bitter and admittedly angry Brascoe Lee said Mr. Golding by going back to the JLP prostituted himself and prostituted the NDM. He said Mr. Golding was spineless. And Mr. Golding didn't even form the NDM. It was the Western 11 dissidents in the JLP who formed it and handed it to him. And the reforms that he is mouthing are not his either. They were articulated by others who helped form the NDM, Mr. Lee said.

Callers to radio talk shows battered him too and journalists gave him a verbal backsiding for sacrificing his credibility on the altar of political expediency.

When Bruce Golding abandoned the lighthouse and walked back into the bell-ringing fold of the JLP was he thinking in the interest of Jamaica? Was the move by the JLP taken with the Jamaican people in mind? What role, if any, does the holding of state power play in this?

Let us examine it.

Mr. Golding said that he and the JLP had made a major breakthrough in getting some agreement on some major issues. A seven-point Memoran-dum of Understanding paved the way for his return to the party. Furthermore, the wreckage that the PNP made of the economy had an influence on his decision to return.

Though the JLP's current position on constitutional reform is a majority decision rather than a unanimous one, it's the party's position nonetheless. What is important, however, is that the separation of powers which Mr. Golding and the abandoned NDM embrace, will, according to the first point in the MOU, be re-examined by the party.

It is important because the JLP is going to re-examine the issue whether or not it wins the election. That is implicit in the agreement, but if I am reading too much into it, then point number one in the MOU is hardly a concession. And Westminster would remain the JLP's official position. Argument dun! And we all know how it is when argument dun. If Mr. Golding continues to push it he may very well find himself being flung head-ways out of the party this time, because he would have out-lived his usefulness, especially if there is merit to the charges of political expediency. Elections are over for now.

The agreement is that if the party wins the election, Jamai-cans will, via a referendum, get to choose which the system of government they want.

Point No. 2 in the MOU states: "It is acknowledged that political tribalism and the culture of tribal politics have had a destructive effect on the society and the democratic process. The JLP in consultation with other political parties and civil society organisations will develop practical initiatives to ensure, as far as possible, the elimination of political tribalism. These initiatives will include the relevant recommendations of the Wolfe Task Force on Crime, the National Committee on Political Tribalism and the National Committee on Crime."

That is probably the greatest challenge in the MOU because it speaks to a system that has become part of the political culture of Jamaica. It has made some politicians, kept some in power, created the power base of some who were ordinary people. It has given some people riches - blood-soaked riches. Letting go will mean dismantling the structure of JLP garrisons as we know them. Two of the 15 garrisons in Jamaica are identified as the JLP's ­ colour green. They would never be the same again. The ripple effect of that would mean political wilderness for the party.

When Mr. Seaga in 1995 accused Bruce Golding of stealing his ideas, Mr. Golding in response to that quoted from a document published June 12, 1995 in which Mr. Seaga is supposed to have said that the kind of politics that the country needs could not be effected in our lifetime. To that Mr. Golding had responded, "Bruce Golding is impatient, it must be effected in my lifetime."

If Mr. Seaga still believes that these kinds of political changes cannot be effected in our lifetime then Bruce Golding has been tricked into returning to the JLP. Conversely it can be argued, that if Bruce Golding is, as he said, impatient and wants to see changes in his lifetime, and if sees the NDM incapable of accelerating that process then the move is not mere expediency.

Also, what Mr. Golding is doing is making a statement about the NDM, the party that he helped form. When he formed that party he said that it was with the intention of changing the present political and constitutional system. The NDM was the alternative and an agent for meaningful change, turning its back on tribalism, exclusion, division, and would instead reflect the essence of true democracy in each aspect of its being. By his action he is now saying that the NDM is a failure. It cannot make those changes. It is headed for the political scrap heap.

Some analysts say that the MOU amounts to nothing. I do not agree with them, based on what I have discussed above. Apart from that, however, there are some utterances that Mr. Golding made in the past about Mr. Seaga which are coming back to haunt him because they strengthen the arguments of his critics.

In 1995 when he and Mr. Seaga warred over Mr. Golding's French Street, Spanish Town constituency office, Mr. Golding told Mr. Seaga to lift his politics "from the level of churlishness". Statements made by Mr. Seaga he said then were "malicious" and "intemperate". Seven years later he is willing to associate with this "ill-mannered" person, who is capable of issuing "malicious and "intemperate" statements about people.

Although I don't remember him saying that he would never return to the JLP he certainly gave that impression. This is so unlike his colleague Karl Samuda. I remember an interview I did with Mr. Samuda when he had left the JLP and went to the PNP. Because of his colourful description of Mr. Seaga as a "little despot" and how he publicly "broke" the bell ­ the symbol of the JLP, I asked him if he would ever return to the JLP. His answer was, "I never say never." We all know how he went back to the JLP and infuriated the scorned PNP so much that they ridiculed him in that infamous advertisement "cock mouth kill cock".

I do not have a problem with Mr. Golding's return to the JLP. What I take issue with is the process. Mr. Golding owed it to the NDM to personally tell them of his decision to leave the party. Instructing Wayne Chen, his close friend and former NDM colleague to talk to President Hyacinth Bennett, is not enough. That was a mistake and he admitted as much at Friday's Gleaner Editors Forum.