BRUCE GOLDING, former president of National Democratic Movement (NDM) who returned to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) which he had abandoned seven years ago, spoke to Gleaner editors about the dynamics of the JLP, party financing and Opposition Leader Edward Seaga's ratings in opinion polls.

He was speaking at The Gleaner's Editors Forum at the company's North Street offices last Friday.

ON PARTY FUNDING AND THE NDM

That was a challenge, that was a major, major, factor (in my departure) and that is part of the difficulty in gaining the traction on the ground.

It was something that I lived with everyday, the problem of funding. The main problem was that the Movement was not gaining the pace on the ground that it needed to attain.

Some concern was being expressed within the Movement that my own political antecedents were major factor in that. Complaints were made that whenever they attempted to mobilise votes, they have to spend this enormous amount of time explaining that I am not the person that I use to be.

It is difficult for a leader to function on that basis. I put it clearly to them, they handled it in a dignified way. They didn't do it in any sort of offensive way, but I mean that was a problem.

After the North East St. Ann by-election we put everything in, we went down there and we worked, we had a good candidate in Barbara Clarke, an effervescent personality and so on, and we saw the signs of improvement, and yet when we got to the crunch, it wasn't that we didn't have people there who were supporting what we were saying, it's just that people voted not so much on the basis of commitment, but on pragmatism.

ON MONEY AND HIS RETURN TO THE JLP

A number of business people did speak to me urging me to return, wanting to know what would prevent me from returning. What the JLP would have to agree to before I would be prepared to return. A number of them did speak with me in those term. As to what role they play, I don't know. Because I don't know the internal workings of the JLP finances... in other words I don't know how much money the JLP has collected and how much the leaders were getting. I hear all kind of figures of $200 million and so on being floated around.

ON SEAGA'S CHOICE TO STAY ON AS JLP LEADER DESPITE POOR SHOWING IN THE POLLS

There is no doubt that renewal of leadership normally pumps a new adrenaline into an organisation, whether it's a Kiwanis Club or a political party. And there is no doubt that whenever parties change leaders, they normally have a lift in the spirit of the organisation and so on, and that is true of the PNP, is true of the JLP. I can't speak to the question of Mr. Seaga, but some may argue that look, he's been there a long time. He may have felt that it is not just his own tenure that has to be taken into account. It may have to do with the circumstances that exist at the particular time how the party fits into those circumstances.

In the polls he is kind of up and down. But he is up and down near to the equator. There are times when he is a little below, there are times when he is a little above. In other words, the polls don't reflect that level of rejection that so many people talk about.

ABOUT THE DYNAMICS OF THE JLP

The Labour party is a funny organisation in the sense that whenever its leader is under pressure it is trained by instinct to surround the leaders. And what I found was that there were persons who agreed to separation of powers in discussion with me. In discussions, we would be sitting down, tossing ideas around, having a couple of beers, and a man would say I agree, I support that, and when it came to the vote I was surprised at some of them who voted against it.

POSITION ON NEW HIGHWAY

We (the JLP government of the 1980s) took a decision early in the 1980s that our focus and our priority would be on maintaining and upgrading the existing road networking rather than building new highways. We said we would not be building any new highway, we going to maintain what we have. And if you look carefully, Old Harbour by-pass is not the only project that have been conceptualised and on which some designing work would have been done which was not proceeded with.

ON SEAGA AND THE 'RUM' THEORY BEHIND THE POLL FINDINGS

Part of Mr. Seaga's misfortune is that he has these short terms or phrases that can be easily misunderstood and yet what he means is not offensive. Because what he meant was that all of this excitement and the Junior Games and Emancipation Park and the 40th anniversary of Independence, all of this kind of hype up the people, you feel good, and if you feel good about everything. Well, why feel so badly about the government? That's what I think he intended to say. I prefer saying it the long way. He prefers to say it the short way.

ON POLITICAL VIOLENCE

The knowledge of political violence for example was something that was endemic to political activities and campaign. You knew that it went on. You knew the people who were there, who were head-cook and bottle-washer in it, and you sort of accepted and abide with them as a necessary part of your political apparatus. There is no secret about the role of violence, the use of guns in election. I don't think a politician is going out and buying guns and giving to people these days. Now Heather Robinson takes a particular view, she says 'I walk away.' What do you do though, not just to walk away, but to mark it out of the political system. That remains the challenge, that's not going to happen overnight. But my own faith is advocately set against.

I did not buy guns. I used the words once, that "...taking guns to Spanish Town is like taking fish to Old Harbour Bay."