One could not have been in Jamaica and not have heard this
story, after all it has been in the news for an entire week, and is one of the
hottest topic of discussion right now particularly on local talk shows. There
are quite a bit of rumblings going on in the opposition Jamaica Labour Party as
it is indicated that Audley “Man-a-Yard Shaw” might have is eyes on the top job in the party
and is carrying on consultations to see whether or not he should challenge the
incumbent Andrew Holness for the leadership
when the Party host it’s annual conference in November , Shaw is currently one
of the 4 deputy leaders of the JLP, Chairman of Area Council Three, Member of
Parliament for North East Manchester, a former finance minister and the current
shadow minister of the same portfolio. Holness on the other hand is Member of
Parliament for West Central St Andrew, a former Prime Minister and Minister of
Education, he is also the current Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.
Given what has been said so far it seems as though the tide
is swaying in favour of the incumbent rather than the challenger, something
Shaw probably did not anticipate given the recent defeat the party had faced at
both local and national levels. However it seems as though many labourites are
still loyal to the incumbent leader , several senior JLP MPs have already
publicly declaring their support for Holness continuing as leader, Everald
Warmington one of the most outspoken MPs and Chairman of Area Council Two had
no qualms about publicly declaring where his loyalties lie and urged the
delegates in his constituency in do likewise, while former culture minster
Olivia “Babsy” Grange even went as far as to assert that any member of the JLP
that wishes to mount a challenge at this time has an alternate agenda that
means no good to the party or the country.
Looking over the history of the Labour Party ever since it’s
foundation 70 years ago, a certain trend has been noticed, since 1943, the JLP
has had four leaders and none of them were elected by popular vote of the
delegates of the party. The JLP was founded by Sir Alexander Bustamante to
challenge the People’s National Party and others in Jamaica’s first general
election that was held the following year. Although he retired for parliament
in 1967, Sir Alexander remained as Party Leader while the senior deputy leader
(Sir Donald Sangster and later Hugh Shearer) served as Prime Minister. In 1974
when Bustamante finally retired from the party, labourites began searching for
a new leader. Shearer was not seen as the most suitable candidate given
his election loss to Michael Manley and the PNP in 1972, so they turned to
Edward “Papa Eddie” Seaga and he took the party in hand and lead it from 1974 to
2005, serving as Prime Minister from 1980-1989. When Seaga retired the senior hierarchy
of the JLP unwilling to have the party divided by a leadership contest decided
to work with who they thought was the most winnable candidate and settled on
Bruce Golding who led them to victory two years later after 18 years out of
government. After only one term as JLP leader and
Prime Minister, Golding also decided that it was time to go and again a
succession crisis arose and the party leadership was settled in the same way as it
was in 2005, this time with Holness emerging as victor, the delegates of the
Jamaica Labour Party were for the most part left out.
Of course in all fairness one cannot blame the party
leadership for all of this, the delegates too must share the blame, after all
according to the constitution of the JLP, the delegates in theory have a opportunity
to elect a new leader every November when conference comes around, it’s just
that they have never exercised this right, that will certainly change this year
and one can only wait and see what the results will be (personally I’m betting
on Holness). Some have accused Man-a-Yard of trying to unseat the leader by surreptitious
and underhanded means and they also claim that he has no right to mount a
challenge but is being driven solely by personal ambition; of course Shaw
denies these charges. These are baseless accusations, in truth Shaw has every
right to challenge for the leadership and so far he has not gone contrary to
the party’s constitution. That does not however mean that the decision to
challenge is a wise one as the opposition surely has better things to do than
internal squabbling.
Overall the situation is like this, Labourites are more
interested in a change of government than they are in a change of party
leadership, many resent Shaw for what they see as his attempts to divide the
party for personal gain (some have even accused him of being a PNP comrade for
doing so), personally I think that it’s not too late for him to back down after
all he has not officially announced a challenge, but in either case the Jamaica
Labour Party will have everything to loose and nothing to gain if it remains
divided along sectarian lines and distracted by personality issues.
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