Clear victory for JNLPP

Published in the Jamaica Gleaner : Thursday | September 6, 2007

Melville Cooke

"Never make a politician grant you a favour

They will always want to control you forever."

- Bob Marley, 'Revolution'

WHEN THE original general election date of August 27 was announced by soon-to-be former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, I declared my position as spokesman (by default) of the Just Not Loving Politics Party (JNLPP). The unofficial real third party of Jamaica, it is a silent alliance of persons who qualify to vote under the much vaunted universal adult suffrage but who suffer themselves to not go to thepolling stations on election day.

We had a meeting of the minds every Thursday in this space, simply by finding something of interest to speak about other than changing or not changing course, the mysteries of the number seven and keeping count of how many promises of freeness had been made by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People's National Party (PNP).

We took out no advertisements on television or radio; we printed no T-shirts; we composed no jingles; we held no mass meetings or motorcades; we gave out no free liquor; we presented no manifesto; we called no one duppy, punk or Jezebel.

Finishing way ahead

And on September 3, while the JLP did a Tyson Gay on the Asafa Powell of the PNP as the official results rolled in, we were rounding the first bend of the track, cooling down after the victory. We were so far ahead, we were not even in the same race. To reverse horse racing jargon, we finished way ahead, out of the frame.

To put it as Jamaicans do in our own unique way, "we run offa de TV".

A voter turnout of 60 per cent has been bandied about by the Electoral Office of Jamaica, but when the number of eligible adults who chose to not even be enumerated is added to the remaining 40 per cent, the percentage of the eligible electorate should be over 50 per cent.

However, as the JNLPP's self-appointed spokesperson, I am in a ticklish position. I do not know why those I purport to speak for do not vote, since we do not meet, but I can speak for myself and I think that it will include some of their reasons.

The decision not to vote (which is more a statement of deliberate disengagement than the generally assumed apathy) is taken because of the obvious reasons, such as political party association with thuggery (just what was that post-election violence about?), a lack of distinctive difference between the two main political parties save for choice of colour and symbol and the knowledge that we have heard all the politicking before.

Promises of freeness

Butit is more than those factors. It is this approach by the PNP and JLP towards political campaigning that is simply a goddamn insult to my intelligence and sense of independence. When the more prominent politicians are on the campaign trail, struggling to speak Patois (save for Desmond McKenzie and Portia Simpson Miller) and appear to be one of the people, it could not be me they are making a mockery of as they switch personalities with a turn of the key in the switch of whatever vehicle carries them around.

And as for all those promises of freeness, did I beg anybody anything? Haven't I tried to work, since I was 17 years old, to provide at least the basic necessities for myself and those I am responsible for? Do I look as if I need a beatific benefactor, to whom I should genuflect until I am a geriatric in gratitude for some 'freeness'?

Soon-to-be Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who normally has as much personality as a patty, put it well as he spoke at the JLP headquarters on the night of the victory when he said "It may very well be that the people of Jamaica, in their own profound wisdom, are sending a clear message to all of us that the time has come for constructive engagement among the political forces of the country".

But it was not only the people who voted who were sending a message; it was also those who did not. And for us it is not the parties which need to engage each other constructively so much as us who they need to treat with some regard.

Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.