It was the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, famous for his astuteness, who described politics as the art of the possible. The meaning of that aphorism was played out on the local political scene last week when Bruce Golding decided to once again align his political fortunes with the Jamaica Labour Party.

Mr. Golding has often been described as born in the JLP. His father, the late Tacius Golding, was a JLP Member of Parliament and served as Speaker of the House. The younger Mr. Golding became a member of the Central Executive of the Party at age 22 and in 1972 at 25 became the youngest Member of Parliament when he was elected to represent the West St. Catherine constituency formerly held by his father.

Mr. Golding's rise through the party hierarchy was meteoric, becoming General Secretary, and subsequently Chairman and, as a protégé of JLP Leader Edward Seaga, was considered to be the front-runner to succeed him.

It took many by surprise when there were reports of rumblings of discontent from Mr. Golding about the structure of the party and even greater surprise when he resigned from the party in 1995 and subsequently launched a third political party, the National Democratic Movement (NDM).

The NDM branded itself as new and different and championed a number of measures to reform the country's political system. It advocated constitutional reform and proposed a separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of Government modelled more on the Presidential than the Westminster system. It had concerns about the unfettered power that rested in the hands of the Prime Minister and promoted fixed terms for the holders of political office. It denounced the tribal nature of our politics and proposed an allocation of a percentage of the national budget to the 60 constituencies for development.

While the ideas of the NDM had some resonance the party fared badly at the polls.

Mr. Golding resigned as its President in 2001 though he was at pains to say that he continued to be a member and subscribed to its principles. Now in 2002 Mr. Golding is back in the JLP but not before getting that party to agree to a Memorandum of Understanding that embraces many of the principles of the NDM. They include separation of powers which is to be decided by a referendum within two years of the JLP forming a Government, the elimination of political tribalism, and the re-examination of the issue of term limits and a fixed date for elections.

The sceptics and the cynics have been crying 'sell-out' and have been lambasting Mr. Golding as a political opportunist who has rejoined the JLP to bolster its flagging poll ratings in the electoral campaign. But as we commented in an editorial over a year ago when Mr. Golding resigned from the NDM, "in many countries with a first-past-the-post electoral system third parties often fare badly at the polls. Some never go beyond the stage of being the source of new ideas, which are adopted and implemented by the main parties".

If that were to be the fate of the NDM we would still believe that it has served a very useful purpose. We see Mr. Golding's latest political step as restoring much needed talent and experience to the political life of the country, especially if he pursues those fundamental reforms he advocates.