Aftermath of Conference

The annual conference of the Jamaica Labour Party has come and gone and I’m sure many of my regular readers must be wondering what happened to the review they have been promised by yours truly. Well here’s the final piece in this entire JLP vs JLP saga, for those of you do not know, the leadership race has come and gone and incumbent party leader Andrew Holness has managed to successfully defend his position against challenger Audley “Man-a-Yard” Shaw, with delegates choosing to give Holness  2,704 votes while another 2,012 voted in favour of Shaw, without a doubt it was clear who won the day and yours truly was one of those was fortunate to be on site at the National Arena in this historic day in the life of the party, a day which also has great significant for the continuance of the political right winged movement in Jamaica.

                         

So now that the elections are over one would have thought that the JLP would now get its act together, and prepare to take on the left winged People’s National Party in order to drive them out of Jamaica House come next general election, but unfortunately the fued continues as was demonstrated by actions taken by both sides this week. Upon being reelected as leader of the party, one of Holness’ first act was to reshuffle his shadow cabinet effectively placing Audley Shaw and all his supporters on the back benches of Gordon House and if that were not enough it emerged that Holness controversially sent pre-written and undated resignation letters of certain Senators to the Governor-General for his approval. According to sources, Holness had asked all opposition Senators to write undated resignation letters and submit them to him for safekeeping which he would in turn submit to Sir Patrick Allen (the Governor-General) at a time he sees fit.

                    

How does something like that work?, let me explain, the Constitution of Jamaica stipulates that the Upper House should consist of 21 senators, 13 from the government and 8 from the opposition, all of which are appointed by the Crown on the advice of the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader. The controversy in this case comes from the fact that Holness upon winning the leadership challenge had asked certain persons to politely step aside and give him a free hand to assemble his team, they refused so he took more drastic measures. Since this incident occurred there is a raging debate going on as to whether or not the leader did the correct thing, on one hand some accused Holness of being dictatorial and vindictive by seeking to ruin all those who had opposed him, such persons accuse him of violating the constitution and also brings the independence and integrity  of the senate  as an institution into  disrepute. On the other hand there are those who says that the leader is better off starting afresh with new faces, it’s only appropriate seeing as his recent  win has given him a new mandate and it would be a backward step for him to continue with the same old faces especially since some of those former senators were the very ones who had opposed Holness and supported what they saw as Shaw’s attempted coup d’état, they had gambled everything and lost, the only decent thing for them to do was to graciously step aside.

               

While I may not totally agree with the removal of Shaw and his supporters from both the shadow cabinet and the senate, I see the point Holness’ supporters are trying to make here, it kinds of reminds me of the famous line from the HBO Television series  “Game of Thrones” where a character uttered the now famous quotation “Whenever you play the Game of Thrones, you either win or die, there is no middle ground”, it seems to me like  Shaw and his crew though they’ve already lost in this game , they’re not ready to die just yet, this was exemplified in a letter sent by Shaw to Holness the day of his election loss outlining a set of demands that must be met before he will ever accept any post in a shadow cabinet led by Holness. I’m not entirely sure what his motivation was for doing so but it certainly does not seem like Shaw is ready to gracefully accept his loss and move one, in one of his campaign speeches Shaw had promised to be the worst nightmare for Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller if elected, one can only hope that now he has been rejected, he would not turn into Andrew Holness’ worst nightmare instead.

              

Then there is the whole matter of whether or not Holness’ actions in sending the undated letters to Kings House was even legal. From all accounts regardless of all the sentiments about independence of the senate, legislative review,  separation of powers and whatever other argument some persons are coming up with, in truth there is no legal basis to claim that Holness’ actions were illegal, uncalled for maybe but certainly not unconstitutional, in any organization public or private, it is understood that the person who hires you (or someone else in a similar position later on) also has the power to fire you, hence the reason why he could ask senators to step aside but not members of Parliament who are directly elected by their constituents. The 8 opposition senators were appointed on Holness’ advice and so why can’t have them removed just as easily? And as for the senate as an independent body, Where did they get that from?, the Governor-General cannot appoint a Senator on his own, he must wait to  be advised by either the Prime Minister or Opposition Leader as to who to appoint, some Caribbean countries like Trinidad and Barbados have independent senators which are nonaligned to a political party, Jamaica does not, so tell me again what kind of independent senate are they talking about.

There is an old saying that you can’t eat your cake and have it yet it seems that’s exactly what Shaw and his supporters are intent on doing, while there are some who accuse Holness and his supporters of promoting disunity in the JLP even after the race is over, that’s an unfair observation considering that the same thing can be said of the Shaw Team, quite frankly in this saga, I think there is more than enough blame to go around on all sides.