Caribbean & Central America - October 2011 (ISSN 1741-4458)

On 2 October Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, gave a national TV address in which he sketched out the reasons for his decision to resign as prime minister. The decision was initially announced by himself and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) on 25 September. Officially, the JLP said that it had tried to talk Golding out of resignation but that Golding was adamant. At that point, neither the party, nor Golding, gave any reason for the change at the top. The new party leader and prime minister will be chosen by delegates at the JLP’s forthcoming annual conference on 18 November. There are already six candidates to succeed Golding, but no-one has formally declared yet. Nominations close on 19 October.

Golding, 63, said that a younger leader was needed to take the party into the general elections next year. He also admitted that questions about his role in the saga which led to the extradition to the US of a Jamaican drug baron, Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, had affected him “deeply” (see box). He said: “I cannot allow the challenges we face and the issues that we as a people must confront to be smothered or overpowered by this saga and the emotions they ignite. It would not be fair to my country; it would not be fair to my party.”

Golding has been in office for four years, after narrowly winning the 2007 election that ended the JLP’s 18 years out of office. His twin goals were to reduce violent crime and to get the economy growing again. There was some evidence that he was achieving these goals. Violent crime has dropped nearly 40% year-on-year in the first half of 2011, according to official figures, thanks to a heavy crackdown on gangs.

The government says that the economy is on the up. The finance minister, Audley Shaw, expects real annual GDP in 2011 to exceed the 2.5% growth target. Furthermore, the opposition has got itself into a tangle after the energy minister, Clive Mullings, asserted that the economy was growing again after 20 years of decline. A former finance minister, Omar Davies, from the opposition, questioned this assertion and produced statistical evidence purporting that there had been no growth since 2008. Davies and the opposition would probably have been better advised to have welcomed the growth but to have argued simultaneously that it was both overdue and feeble.

Before his resignation announcement, Golding was even showing signs of picking up in the opinion polls after the ‘Dudus’ scandal. His popularity was mostly recently marked at 32%, up from 25% year ago.

The front-runner to succeed Golding is Andrew Holness, 39, according to an opinion poll for the Daily Gleaner, a local newspaper. Holness is a three-term member of parliament and currently minister of education. He had by far the highest name recognition, with 43% of those polled by the Gleaner on 1- 2 October naming him as the best candidate to succeed Golding. The other five contenders, Dr Christopher Tufton, 43 (the minister of industry investment and commerce), Dr Ken Baugh (deputy prime minister and foreign minister), Audley Shaw, Mike Henry (transport minister) and Robert Montague (agriculture and fisheries minister) have much less support.  Tufton is a distant second with 9% support, according to the Gleaner poll.

The Gleaner is now floating the idea that Holness may be elected unopposed, such is his strength in the opinion polls.

As Holness is by the youngest of the six contenders, Golding’s comment on “a new generation” suggests that Holness is Golding’s preferred candidate. It is not clear whether Golding will step down from politics entirely. He has not said whether he will fight for his seat in the 2012 elections.

The dig about youth also strikes at Portia Simpson Miller, the leader of the opposition People’s National Party (PNP). She is rising 66 and has been a fixture of national political life for decades. Golding himself was first elected to the House of Representatives 40 years ago. Golding pointed out that the leaders of the US, Britain, Canada, Mexico, Spain, the Netherlands, Finland, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Australia and New Zealand were all at least 10 years younger than him.

Golding sought to reassure “major international partners” that his resignation would not result in instability, stating, “the direction of the government is firmly in place and the transition will be smooth and seamless…We will not deviate from the economic reforms on which we have embarked”. While Jamaica, like the rest of the Caribbean, had suffered as a result of the 2008-2009 global recession, an August report by the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac) noted signs of recovery. According to the report, following estimated annual real GDP contractions of 1.3% in 2010 and 30% in 2009, there will be a recovery of 1.5% in 2011, thanks to stronger exports and a reduction in domestic interest rates.

As inflation has remained subdued (1.7% accumulated for the first five months of the year), the central bank has been able to push interest rates down to a barely positive (in inflation terms) level of 6.25%. The bank’s target for inflation in 2011 is for a rate of between 6% and 8%.

Golding has pulled the government out of loss-making businesses such as the flagship carrier, Air Jamaica, and three of the sugar mills it had previously taken over.

In his TV address, Golding argued that the economy is now creating new jobs again, though he also admitted that so far the number of new jobs had not replaced those that had been lost during the downturn. He said that “while the worst may have passed, we are not out of the woods. There are challenges that remain on many fronts that will require strong leadership to overcome and absolute confidence in that leadership. Questions about the role I played in the Coke/Manatt matter have remained a source of concern in the minds of many people.”

• The ‘Dudus’ Saga

Golding’s leadership and his credibility were called into question after it emerged last year that he had spent almost nine months stonewalling a US extradition request for Cristopher ‘Dudus’ Coke. The US originally issued the request in 2009.

Golding maintained that he objected to the extradition request because it relied on unauthorised wiretap evidence, but he also appeared to hire a US law firm, Manatt, Phelps & Philips, to lobby the US to drop the extradition request.

What made the US request so politically sensitive was that Dudus’s ‘Shower Posse’ controlled the Kingston neighbourhood of Tivoli Gardens, which was the heart of Golding’s parliamentary constituency.

Golding inherited his constituency from the JLP’s longtime leader Edward Seaga in 2002. Seaga had allowed ‘garrison politics’ - in which gangs deliver votes for local politicians - to flourish. Golding had been an outspoken critic of such practices.

When Golding eventually authorised the arrest of ‘Dudus’ in May 2010, there were pitched battles between gang members, police and the army. At least 73 people were killed in four days of fighting. Three security officers were also killed. Coke himself was captured (some say he surrendered) a month later and was extradited to the US, where he pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering and assault.

• Private sector backing

The private sector lobby, Partnership for Transformation (PFT) issued a statement backing Golding’s decision to step down and expressing a willingness to collaborate with the next prime minister to ensure good governance. The PFT includes the Jamaica Exporters' Association, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association, the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce and the MSME Alliance, which represents a significant number of small and medium-sized enterprises

• Party roles

Andrew Holness is the chairman of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP)’s public relations committee; Audley Shaw and Christopher Tufton are deputy party leaders of the JLP; Mike Henry is party chairman and Robert Montague is deputy party chairman.