Decisive Leadership needed in the Peoples National Party

Over the weekend, the Opposition Party, the Peoples National Party, voted to return Mrs. Portia Simpson-Miller as its Leader. The Party’s Constitution makes the Annual Conference the Party’s highest decision making forum and requires that the term of its elected Officers, including the President is one year. The Constitution also requires that elections (by delegates) must be held every year at Conference. In its first 69 years, the delegates dutifully returned the incumbent President unopposed. Elections for Party Leader have been held 3 times when an incumbent has retired (Norman Manley in 1969; Michael Manley in 1992; and P.J. Patterson in 2006). However in its 70th year, and for the first time, the incumbent was challenged.

This democratic notion of challenging an incumbent Leader is new to the Party and predictably has not been taken kindly by the incumbent or by those supporting her. The result has been a split in the party as Mrs. Simpson-Miller and her supporters have wrongfully confused democracy with trying to “beat her down” and “mash up the party”. We have witnessed the strident vice presidential races in the PNP where losers continued to work in the party. However there appears to be one code of practice for the Vice Presidential race and another for the Presidential race.

Now that the elections are over and Mrs. Simpson-Miller has been returned as President, where should the PNP go from here? Mrs. Simpson-Miller MUST meet with Dr. Phillips one-on-one and work out differences and agree what is best for the party. Mrs. Simpson-Miller and her supporters must also recognize and accept that it is OK, and in the spirit of democracy, to be challenged. Dr. Phillips MUST let his supporters know that the campaign is over, the party must move on and that there are more commonalities with, than differences between, other members of the party.

Mrs. Simpson-Miller has admitted that she erred on ascendancy to the Prime Minister in March 2007 by keeping Mr. Patterson’s team in place rather than making the required changes in the best interest of the Government and of Jamaica. In other words, faced with an easy choice of doing what people wanted her to do and with a difficult choice of doing what was right, she chose the former and attributed that to her loss in the General Elections. A key tenet of great leadership is to take decisive and tough decisions, even when it is unpopular. Mrs. Simpson-Miller chose the easy way out in March 2006 and is now faced with another choice. This time she must demonstrate decisive leadership and do what is best for the party. The choice is hers and, unlike what many commentators are saying, she has a free hand whether or not anyone wants to voluntary step aside. The Party Leader should take a leaf out of Captain Horace Burrell’s book who did not wait for Professor Simoes to step aside, but exhibited decisive leadership in taking a tough decision in the best interest of Jamaica’s football.

Lessons in Leadership – Jamaica Football

Captain Horace Burrell, the President of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) first assumed office in 1994 and boldly stated that he would take the Jamaican team to France for the World Cup finals in 1998. Although he faced many obstacles and hardships, he stuck to his vision, took tough decisions and delivered on his promise. One of the key factors in delivering on his promise was the hiring of Professor Rene Simoes as the Technical Director.

Captain Burrell relinquished the Presidency in 2003 to Crenston Boxhill and wrestled control once more in 2007 where he vowed once more to take Jamaica to the world cup finals, this time South Africa in 2010. Shortly after assuming the office the second time around, the Captain took a tough decision to dismiss then Technical Director Bora Milutinovic. He turned to his good friend Professor Simoes who arrived in Jamaica in January 2008. Over the last 14 years the Captain and the Professor developed a deep mutual respect for each other and were very close friends.

Jamaica was drawn in the proverbial “Group of Death” for the CONCACAF semi-final qualifiers alongside Mexico, Honduras and Canada. Everyone knew it was going to be tough to be one of the two qualifiers from this Group. Mexico, the perennial kingpins of CONCACAF was expected to go through, however Honduras and Canada were no walkovers. Having lost the first three matches, and with Jamaica’s chances of qualifying literally hanging by a string, Captain Burrell had to take a tough decision. The fact that it involved the future of Professor Simoes, his very close friend and one well loved by Jamaicans, made it very difficult. Shortly after 1 am in Honduras, the decision was taken and Professor Simoes was no longer employed to coach the Jamaica National Football Team.

What lessons can we learn? Some persons agreed with the Captain, while many said it was cruel – he should have waited. The fact is that as leaders we are always faced with tough decisions, we may not always take the “right” decision, but we must be decisive and work with what we have done.

I reflect on the tenure of Mrs. Portia Simpson-Miller as Prime Minister. She was faced with tough decisions regarding persons very close to her. Most notably was then Minister Phillip Paulwell who should have been held accountable for the cement debacle which crippled the construction industry for months. He should have been held accountable for the Trafigura Affair. Unfortunately, Mr. Paulwell was the greatest supporter of Mrs. Simpson-Miller leading up to the PNP Presidential race in 2006 and thereafter. It is my opinion that had Mrs. Simpson-Miller taken the tough decision and stripped Mr. Paulwell of his Ministerial responsibilities, she would most likely have won the General Election in 2007. Instead her popularity rating snowballed from in the 70’s in March 2006 to the 40’s by time the election was called.