Golding's leadership and self-sabotage

Robert Buddan, POLITICS OF OUR TIME

Everald Warmington, member of parliament for South West St Catherine, delivered a stinging rebuke of Bruce Golding's leadership at a Standing Committee meeting of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) more than a week ago. This comes as a grave setback for Mr Golding, who has been desperately trying to gain traction with the public over the past year.

In the post-Coke extradition period, he has been attempting to save his meandering political career. But each step of the way has brought its own misery, and so Mr Golding's problems just keep mounting. He seems to be locked into a self-destructive cycle of self-sabotage. Very often, persons with ability and potential do this to themselves.

Mr Golding has attempted a number of things since May last year to rehabilitate his image, albeit sometimes under duress and with the ill-advice of his handlers. He has (1) positioned himself as a crime-fighter; (2) appointed a commission of enquiry into the Manatt-Coke affair and separated the roles of minister of justice and attorney general, as it recommended; (3) accepted the resignation from the Cabinet of the controversial James Robertson; and (4) reshuffled the Cabinet. Each of these is a story within a bigger story; and each has had its costs because not everyone in the party is happy about any of them. Mr Warmington has made that clear.

Within his own party, Mr Golding seems up against: (1) the Brady group; (2) the so-called Young Turks; (3) the resentment among the Seaga Labourites, the National Democratic Movement Labourites and 'Shower Labourites'; and (4) party supporters at large.

Right after the release of the Manatt-Coke commission report, in fact, Mr Golding addressed a group in Mr Vaz's constituency trying to say that the Coke matter was now behind them and the party should focus on defeating the People's National Party (PNP). That rally cry does not seem to have worked. Mr Warmington's salvo has refocused attention on Golding and his leadership. But you wonder if Mr Golding's self-sabotage has not brought this on himself.

For example, as crime fighter, Mr Golding tried to rush six crime bills through Parliament, including amendments to the Bail Act, all in a hurry to tap into the prevailing mood for tough crime-fighting laws. The Supreme Court has now ruled the amendments unconstitutional. It mattered little that the amendments were contrary to the very Charter of Rights which was on the table.

Leadership questions

A number of leadership questions arise from this ongoing attempt to understand the JLP and Mr Golding. The country has not had the single-minded attention it has needed to deal with an economy in deep trouble. Mr Golding has never been able to command the kind of national support needed to galvanise production and sacrifice. Worse, he has not been able to exert command over his party. This only leads to even more questions.

Is it because he won't take responsibility? Probably this is what Mr Warmington was saying about him being unfair to Ms Lightbourne instead of resigning as public opinion believes he should do. Is it because he is indecisive (flip-flop) and is this what Mr Warmington was alleging in his reference to Mr Seaga, who once said the same thing? Is it because he is Machiavellian and he, and his like-minded inner circle, feel they can manipulate enough people to get away with enough misconduct?

Is this behind the "web of deceit" surrounding the whole Manatt-Coke affair that the solicitor general, Douglas Leys, spoke about at the enquiry? Was it the Machiavellian streak that drove him to take advantage of the commission's recommendation to separate the justice minister and attorney general by appointing a "personal lawyer" (as Mr Warmington reportedly phrased it) to protect his private interest through a public office?

Is there a character flaw, a tendency to ignore the truth, and did this lead Mr K. D. Knight to say Golding was "pathologically mendacious"? Is he such an opportunist that he agreed to head an impossibly faction-ridden party bowing to too many masters who have cross-cutting agendas representing business, politics and, allegedly, crime, thereby giving conflicting and contradictory signals and creating new factions and alienating old factions in this quarrelsome and seemingly ungovernable party? Is this why Mr Warmington said Mr Golding does not consult, which could mean he is consulting privately with those powers lurking in the shadows of the party's democracy and listening only to them?

The media describe Mr Warmington as a "former loyalist". He now complains of being muzzled. Is Mr Warmington about to create his own faction or party to "speak for the poor people of Jamaica"? Is it a major grouse that Golding's personal unpopularity is dragging down the JLP and the interest of the poor people who Bustamante formed his party to defend? Probably this is part of the division in the party and why one newspaper thought Mr Warmington's charges were "the clearest indicator that the relationship between Golding and elements of the party membership remains sour"?

Is Golding just clumsy and prone to poor judgement? Mr Warmington accused him, quite rightly, of an ill-timed bird-shooting trip to Paraguay right after the Manatt commission's report came out. Or, was this deviously Machiavellian? He did the same thing when Mr Samuda was left to take the heat for issuing the shadowy statement last April about "persons within the JLP" who had provided money to pay Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.

Self-sabotage

Sometimes we find it hard to understand people's actions. We presume there is good reason, a hidden logic, behind their action. What is striking about Mr Warmington's charges is that he offered no hidden logic and no rationality for Mr Golding's actions. From where Mr Warmington sits on the inside, things appear to him much as it appears to us on the outside - plain bad leadership.

Persons can have hidden conflicts of values that rule their visible behaviour and their thinking. To understand the 'Driver', Bruce Golding, we might have to look at his inner drives to see why he is crashing. There seems to be a conflict of values between the democracy he espouses and the 'Shower politics' he practises. In real life, the forces that drive his personality cannot properly and decisively negotiate between opportunity for change and the opportunism of the old way; between truth-telling and escapism and denial; between taking responsibility and playing the blame game.

This is where the strength of character fails. In the end, it is character that makes one stand up for what he or she believes is right rather than settle for what is convenient. One does not ignore the fact that a number of your parliamentarians were unconstitutionally elected because of the convenience of having a ruling majority. This is what he admitted to doing.

There is a tendency for undisciplined people who cannot control their impulses to self-destruct. It is consciously wanting something but subconsciously making sure you don't get it. It is ultimately linked to lack of self-worth. This, too, is what media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, Italian President Silvio Berlusconi, and former IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn seem to have in common. If claims against them are true, they did things they need not have done and sabotaged themselves.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.