THE PNP GOES DOWN IN FLAMES IN JA NOW WHAT ?

Last year this time the People’s National Party of Jamaica, the party of such giants as Michael Manley and P J Patterson, met in convention and divided almost in half.  The MP Peter Bunting challenged Peter Philips, the then leader.  Mr. Bunting was rich and dynamic.  Mr. Philips, smart and wooden, they said was not up to the job. Mr. Philips rallied the establishment behind him and pulled off victory by 71 votes.  He took the victory to be something other than it was. He cleaned house in his inner circle of leadership. Then proceeded to shut out his MPs that went with Mr. Bunting.  They tried to patch things up when the MPs threatened to revolt in March of this year. The patch didn’t work. The public didn’t buy the patch nor the leader.  Despite a well fought campaign, Peter Philips went down in flames as the first PNP leader ever not to become Prime Minister on election day 3 September 2020.  To add insult to injury the country felt that he hid his illness of third stage colon cancer and was misleading when he said that he had been cured of it. Right now after the 3td September 2020 general election, the PNP in Jamaica is where the PLP was in 2017.  The blame game has started and the target of the party are on Peter Philips.  They blame him for being selfish and taking the party to ruin. It is like listening to stories some people told of Perry Christie in The Bahamas of 2017. So what now?  Our advice is the same advice that former PNP Leader and Prime Minister Michael Manley told Fred Mitchell after Mr. Manley’s 1981 defeat: “ We routed them before, we can route them again”.  No point in blame and recriminations. Mr. Philips has resigned.  The PNP’s campaign to win again must start from the day after the general election.  The party was not destroyed.  You only lost the general election.