Now we know the date December 29th with nomination day December 12th after much speculation and an almost anti climatic episode for the Jamaica Labour Party the opposition as we have seen has been campaigning on cass cass and accusations more than issues with finger pointing at selective issues from both sides, since the last entry in this series, Part 13, we have seen a plethora of items pass us by like a breeze.
Danville Walker's entry into politics and the subsequent public persona battering as led by opposition member Peter Bunting.
The resignation of two persons being the Minister of Transport and Works Mike Henry over the messy JDIP funds scandal and the former Chief Executive Officer of the National Works Agency Mr. Patrick Wong, right in the nick if the election campaign and a mess that has tested the mettle of Prime Minister Andrew Holness
Danville Walker's entry into politics and the subsequent public persona battering as led by opposition member Peter Bunting.
The resignation of two persons being the Minister of Transport and Works Mike Henry over the messy JDIP funds scandal and the former Chief Executive Officer of the National Works Agency Mr. Patrick Wong, right in the nick if the election campaign and a mess that has tested the mettle of Prime Minister Andrew Holness
The arrest of a PNP candidate who has been accused of obtaining money by fraud by offering overseas employment in exchange for funds
The appearance in court of a female JLP candidate for tax evasion
The contentious public sector wage bill finally agreed upon and signed to
The murder of a PNP political representative
The old PNP Trafigura scandal which could have been a feather in the JLP's hat is stayed by a court action to avoid it being tried in open court.
The PNP's JEEP program crashing in a sense as they have failed to elucidate on its tenets
The see saw in poll ratings for both political parties
The increase of the seat count in the house from 60 to 63
The crossing of the floor by embattled PNP stalwart Sharon Hay Webster to the ruling JLP
The UK aid removal strategic move to get countries to decriminalize buggery with the Prime Minister avoiding the route of his predecessor Bruce Golding with his Not In My Cabinet rant and saying that actions in private have a public effect which is not clear to many as to what he means, will he be challenging the present buggery laws or strengthening them to further invade and observe private actions of citizens? While speaking of challenge the buggery law has been challenged by a set of advocates and AIDSFREEWORLD with the leading voice being Lord Anthony Gifford, the man who led the Irish repealing their laws in 2006.
The opposition party the PNP thwarting an effort to have their own messy scandal the Trafigura matter aired in open court, the issue is to be heard in the Supreme Court today as a matter of fact.
Sadly both parties have not put out their manifestos as yet prompting speculation that they have nothing new to offer and the amazing thing in regards to the LGBT community is that we readily celebrate and support a People's National Party PNP who once had a leader in the form of Percival James Patterson aka PJ who nearly the entire country had in the back of their minds as gay yet he denied the accusations in 2005 by saying
"My credentials as a lifelong heterosexual person are impeccable," Patterson, then 63 told hosts Beverly Anderson-Manley and Anthony Abrahams of the HOT 102 morning talk show, the Breakfast Club. "Anybody who tries to say otherwise is not just smearing and in vulgar abuse... but when you talk about demonising, what is that?" "I want to put that on the table squarely," Patterson said. But we all knew otherwise JLP leader, Edward Seaga, ignited open public speculation about the prime minister's sexuality in 1993 when he declared from a campaign platform that no one had ever accused him of "Boom, bye, bye", drawing on the song by the Jamaican dancehall deejay, Buju Banton that advocated the killing of homosexuals.
That song seriously derailed Buju Banton's career when American gays encouraged a boycott of the deejay, until he publicly apologized. The rumours have lingered about the bachelor Patterson, who was once married to the late Guyanese lawyer and government minister, Shirley Field-Ridley. The couple had two children before they divorced. Although Patterson jealously guards his private life, he has been romantically linked to several women over the years, including most recently to a well-known caterer and then to a divorced public health doctor. Before that, he was also reportedly romantically linked to the ex-wife of a former Barbados government minister.
However, the rumours about the prime minister had returned with a vengeance, when the JLP used the anti-homosexual song, Chi Chi Man, by the Jamaican group T O K as the signature for its campaign in the March by-election for the North East St Ann constituency. It had since then been used extensively by the JLP at its public meetings until a decision was taken to stop using anti gay materials in campaigns.
That song says:
'From dem a par in a chi chi man car gi wi fire mek we bun dem'
'From dem a drink in a chi chi man bar gi wi fire mek we bun dem'
While the singers have denied that the song promotes violence, the English translation of the Jamaican dialect would be roughly that people who hang out with homosexuals or effeminate males (chi chi men) should be burnt. One line even proposes to "full dem up with copper shot". The PNP also sided with the ruling Jamaica Labour party again out of political expediency much to the full support by some LGBT people who give violence and Jamaica's non acceptance of homosexuality and gay men in particular as justification to deny us any recognition or rights in the recently debated and passed Charter of Rights using the smoke screen gay marriage ploy to say they won't sanction homosexuality as an alternate lifestyle and this hypocrisy continues. They were deafeningly silent during the last few months when David Cameron issued an economic fatwa of sorts on commonwealth countries to remove buggery laws even though it was mainly African states states that were the target of the supposed threat.
The polls have been close with the PNP inching a few percentage points but things still look as a political dead heat as it draws closer. Silly season has begun, defacing of billboards on both sides, a slightly aggressive ad campaign and a moral battle is on to win hearts and minds of the voters especially those on the fence. As indicated in the title of this post some are asking for more than just partisan politics, real rights recognition is required and the political rhetoric from both sides is unacceptable. Portia Simpson Miller's promise to renegotiate IMF deals was laughed at by some technocrats as it was explained by one of the IMF lead personnel that that is not possible until 2014, her promise to remove general consumption tax GCT from electricity bills also had some laughing as we already have a reprieve on that when residential customers consume under 200 kilowatt hours per their bills are GCT free. The PNP seems to be grasping for straws to try to pin the JLP while the JLP is being accused of cloning former Bruce Golding into present PM Andrew Holness as comically described by Opposition leader Portia Simpson Miller as Papa Doc and Baby Doc, suggesting a continuation of the previous PM's policies. The People's National Party (PNP) says it is not worried about its chances in the Manchester Central constituency today.
The pronouncement follows a just-concluded Gleaner-commissioned Bill Johnson poll which revealed that the incumbent Peter Bunting is slightly trailing the JLP’s proposed candidate, Danville Walker.
JLP AD promoting female candidates
Thirty one per cent of voters said they would definitely vote JLP, while another six per cent said they would probably make their mark beside the name of the party’s candidate.
This gives the JLP a possible 37 per cent support.
The PNP is behind by four percentage points with 31 percent of the voters indicating that they would definitely cast their ballot for the PNP with a further two percent saying they would probably vote PNP.
PNP deputy General Secretary Julian Robinson said the party is not daunted by the poll results.
According to him, the PNP candidate has been working hard in Manchester Central.
Here is a video with sound bites from all over including the infamous Manatt commission of inquiry with the Security Minister's "I can't recall" line
here is a Smile Jamaica interview with Prime Minister Andrew Holness
Andrew Holness's oratorical skills has also been questioned and the accuracy of some of his pronouncements on the platform too.
But I say vote ...................
☐ PNP ☐ JLP ☑ Legalize Buggery/Anal Sex in private ........
Which one of these parties are going to be bold enough to have the uncomfortable conversations on this issue and honestly so?
When is the LGBT body politic going to move away from the typical politics supporting parties who do not have our interest at heart but use homophobia for expediency?
Will the JLP win another slim majority or fall as the PNP gains traction?
UPDATE 12/12/11
The Youth debate:
Saturday last we saw the youth debate as part of a series of debates which was finally agreed to by the political parties and the others to follow culminating in the leadership one on one with PM Holness and Opposition leader Portia Simpson Miller. The PNP was more favoured in the above first round. The poster above appeared after the debate in one of the supposed JLP youth groups on Facebook which seems to take a swipe at one of
the participants
Mr. Raymond Pryce who persons have been sizing up as gay due to his so called femmy demeanor, is this an attempt to use homophobic profiling to smear a candidate albeit that the opposition PNP does in reality have a larger LGBT following?
here comes a rebuttal:
Now comes controversial video clips maybe sanctioned or not by the party as they were added to external sources Youtube accounts outside of the JLP's main channel but may also be getting tacit support as an article in the Jamaica Observer seems to hint to.
Also see:
Peace and tolerance
H
The appearance in court of a female JLP candidate for tax evasion
The contentious public sector wage bill finally agreed upon and signed to
The murder of a PNP political representative
The old PNP Trafigura scandal which could have been a feather in the JLP's hat is stayed by a court action to avoid it being tried in open court.
The PNP's JEEP program crashing in a sense as they have failed to elucidate on its tenets
The see saw in poll ratings for both political parties
The increase of the seat count in the house from 60 to 63
The crossing of the floor by embattled PNP stalwart Sharon Hay Webster to the ruling JLP
The UK aid removal strategic move to get countries to decriminalize buggery with the Prime Minister avoiding the route of his predecessor Bruce Golding with his Not In My Cabinet rant and saying that actions in private have a public effect which is not clear to many as to what he means, will he be challenging the present buggery laws or strengthening them to further invade and observe private actions of citizens? While speaking of challenge the buggery law has been challenged by a set of advocates and AIDSFREEWORLD with the leading voice being Lord Anthony Gifford, the man who led the Irish repealing their laws in 2006.
The opposition party the PNP thwarting an effort to have their own messy scandal the Trafigura matter aired in open court, the issue is to be heard in the Supreme Court today as a matter of fact.
Sadly both parties have not put out their manifestos as yet prompting speculation that they have nothing new to offer and the amazing thing in regards to the LGBT community is that we readily celebrate and support a People's National Party PNP who once had a leader in the form of Percival James Patterson aka PJ who nearly the entire country had in the back of their minds as gay yet he denied the accusations in 2005 by saying
"My credentials as a lifelong heterosexual person are impeccable," Patterson, then 63 told hosts Beverly Anderson-Manley and Anthony Abrahams of the HOT 102 morning talk show, the Breakfast Club. "Anybody who tries to say otherwise is not just smearing and in vulgar abuse... but when you talk about demonising, what is that?" "I want to put that on the table squarely," Patterson said. But we all knew otherwise JLP leader, Edward Seaga, ignited open public speculation about the prime minister's sexuality in 1993 when he declared from a campaign platform that no one had ever accused him of "Boom, bye, bye", drawing on the song by the Jamaican dancehall deejay, Buju Banton that advocated the killing of homosexuals.
That song seriously derailed Buju Banton's career when American gays encouraged a boycott of the deejay, until he publicly apologized. The rumours have lingered about the bachelor Patterson, who was once married to the late Guyanese lawyer and government minister, Shirley Field-Ridley. The couple had two children before they divorced. Although Patterson jealously guards his private life, he has been romantically linked to several women over the years, including most recently to a well-known caterer and then to a divorced public health doctor. Before that, he was also reportedly romantically linked to the ex-wife of a former Barbados government minister.
However, the rumours about the prime minister had returned with a vengeance, when the JLP used the anti-homosexual song, Chi Chi Man, by the Jamaican group T O K as the signature for its campaign in the March by-election for the North East St Ann constituency. It had since then been used extensively by the JLP at its public meetings until a decision was taken to stop using anti gay materials in campaigns.
That song says:
'From dem a par in a chi chi man car gi wi fire mek we bun dem'
'From dem a drink in a chi chi man bar gi wi fire mek we bun dem'
While the singers have denied that the song promotes violence, the English translation of the Jamaican dialect would be roughly that people who hang out with homosexuals or effeminate males (chi chi men) should be burnt. One line even proposes to "full dem up with copper shot". The PNP also sided with the ruling Jamaica Labour party again out of political expediency much to the full support by some LGBT people who give violence and Jamaica's non acceptance of homosexuality and gay men in particular as justification to deny us any recognition or rights in the recently debated and passed Charter of Rights using the smoke screen gay marriage ploy to say they won't sanction homosexuality as an alternate lifestyle and this hypocrisy continues. They were deafeningly silent during the last few months when David Cameron issued an economic fatwa of sorts on commonwealth countries to remove buggery laws even though it was mainly African states states that were the target of the supposed threat.
The polls have been close with the PNP inching a few percentage points but things still look as a political dead heat as it draws closer. Silly season has begun, defacing of billboards on both sides, a slightly aggressive ad campaign and a moral battle is on to win hearts and minds of the voters especially those on the fence. As indicated in the title of this post some are asking for more than just partisan politics, real rights recognition is required and the political rhetoric from both sides is unacceptable. Portia Simpson Miller's promise to renegotiate IMF deals was laughed at by some technocrats as it was explained by one of the IMF lead personnel that that is not possible until 2014, her promise to remove general consumption tax GCT from electricity bills also had some laughing as we already have a reprieve on that when residential customers consume under 200 kilowatt hours per their bills are GCT free. The PNP seems to be grasping for straws to try to pin the JLP while the JLP is being accused of cloning former Bruce Golding into present PM Andrew Holness as comically described by Opposition leader Portia Simpson Miller as Papa Doc and Baby Doc, suggesting a continuation of the previous PM's policies. The People's National Party (PNP) says it is not worried about its chances in the Manchester Central constituency today.
The pronouncement follows a just-concluded Gleaner-commissioned Bill Johnson poll which revealed that the incumbent Peter Bunting is slightly trailing the JLP’s proposed candidate, Danville Walker.
Thirty one per cent of voters said they would definitely vote JLP, while another six per cent said they would probably make their mark beside the name of the party’s candidate.
This gives the JLP a possible 37 per cent support.
The PNP is behind by four percentage points with 31 percent of the voters indicating that they would definitely cast their ballot for the PNP with a further two percent saying they would probably vote PNP.
PNP deputy General Secretary Julian Robinson said the party is not daunted by the poll results.
According to him, the PNP candidate has been working hard in Manchester Central.
Here is a video with sound bites from all over including the infamous Manatt commission of inquiry with the Security Minister's "I can't recall" line
here is a Smile Jamaica interview with Prime Minister Andrew Holness
Andrew Holness's oratorical skills has also been questioned and the accuracy of some of his pronouncements on the platform too.
But I say vote ...................
☐ PNP ☐ JLP ☑ Legalize Buggery/Anal Sex in private ........
Which one of these parties are going to be bold enough to have the uncomfortable conversations on this issue and honestly so?
When is the LGBT body politic going to move away from the typical politics supporting parties who do not have our interest at heart but use homophobia for expediency?
Will the JLP win another slim majority or fall as the PNP gains traction?
UPDATE 12/12/11
The Youth debate:
the participants
Mr. Raymond Pryce who persons have been sizing up as gay due to his so called femmy demeanor, is this an attempt to use homophobic profiling to smear a candidate albeit that the opposition PNP does in reality have a larger LGBT following?here comes a rebuttal:
Jamaican Anglican head on ….. Money, power and sexuality
Now Mrs Simpson Miller has answered one of those direct questions regarding gays in the cabinet in the leader's debate 21/12/11 when asked by Dionne Jackson Miller host of All Angles
Now that we know her position the sentiments about persons being appointed based on ability have been echoed before in some quarters, it was said before during former Prime Minister PJ Patterson's tenure and supported by even his biggest critic Mutty Perkins yet we ended up with the PNP siding with the Christian right and the JLP as a well in an invented gay marriage smoke screen and removing any protection from the Charter of Rights Bill up to the 2009 passage Besides they are already there in both parties, we know this but the BIG questions are now that we know her position will she and the party stick to it and will the nation agree with her and vote knowing how sensitive this issues is or will voters switch in to Andrew instead, that is where we must now carefully watch and see I believe.
H
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