THE polls have always been kind to Portia Simpson Miller, endorsing her again and again as Jamaica’s most popular political personality.

But, her ratings, and her passion, and her charisma, have never been enough. Perhaps overshadowed at points by her stridency and confrontational approach, last evidenced by her “no draw me tongue” warning to an opposition member.

So while she endures as vice president of the People’s National Party, and she has run super-ministries as a Cabinet minister, there is high scepticism that Simpson Miller will be chosen by delegates of her party as their leader, and more of a certainty that for a second time, she will be denied her dream of being prime minister.

‘Sister P’ or simply Portia, as she is affectionately known, is adored by supporters of both political parties, and is the closest thing in Jamaica to a national beloved big sister.

She is the heart of the PNP, as well as its conscience.

But notions of her perceived weaknesses intellectually and socially persist, compounded by recent revelations of mismanagement at the National Solid Waste Management Authority where, if nothing else, Simpson Miller was guilty of the $2 billion sin of omission in not keeping closer tabs on the affairs of the garbage company, for which she has oversight as local government minister.

Among the commentators who keep a watch on politics, at least one thinks that some of the perceived strikes against Portia, which includes her gender, are amongst her greatest strengths.

“There is the class prejudice. People figure she is not of the right background, being of working class origins, and as a woman, though Jamaican men will not readily admit it, they are very sexist,” says John Maxwell, respected journalist.

“But, these are her greatest strengths as she can understand the experience of the majority of us and she has a great deal to offer them, and she listens to them,” said Maxwell, who has known Simpson Miller since the 1970s when he served as an advisor on the environment and culture to then prime minister, Michael Manley.

Maxwell thinks that her ability to listen to the people and empathize, is what separates Simpson Miller from the other four PNP contenders, as well as the current leader PJ Patterson.

Recalling Simpson Miller’s travails when her constituency came under withering fire from opposing gunmen during the bloody 1980 election campaign – including an incident when she personally stared down attackers who besieged her office, massacring her supporters around her – Portia soldiered on, burying the dead and eventually succeeding in calming perhaps the most volatile of Kingston’s killing fields, Maxwell said.

He thinks no other leadership aspirant has anything near her courage, which, he believes, is the quality most needed to lead Jamaica at this time.

“She has balls. Ask the people of Rose Town and Payne Avenue what they think of her, they know her,” Maxwell insisted.

Simpson Miller represents a tough inner-city constituency, but even there she has high respect.

“She no fraid a nothing, no kind a war, no care wha kind a ruption a gwaan, she is always around in the constituency,” said Maxine to endorsement from Owen, residents of Greenwich Town, one of the many inner-city pockets in the constituency.

Her constituents also praise her for being fair in her representation and not just catering to the needs of comrades.

“If labourite (JLP member) want help, she is just as understanding.

Right now labourite get a whole set of government houses in Marcus Garvey Drive,” noted Andrew, another resident of Greenwich Town, adding that in his view Portia would make a “loving and caring prime minister.”

But, it is at the constituency level that Simpson Miller’s capacity to manage is most questioned.

The need for jobs and social upliftment are overwhelming, but Simpson Miller has opted for a strategy of helping individuals in the face of inadequate resources required to transform her constituency, with the result being criticisms that she is not doing enough.

Giving evidence of Portia’s caring nature, Maxwell recounted that the local government and sports minister had adopted a child from Greenwich Farm whose family was murdered before her eyes in 1980.

The severely traumatised child “would scream if she saw even a glass of pink juice,” Maxwell noted, observing that it took extreme caring and understanding to someone so disturbed at a personal level.

On the issue of Simpson Miller’s intellectual, technical and moral leadership, Maxwell notes that her handling of the fall-out from the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, as tourism minister, was superb, earning kudos from the local and international travel sector.

“They thought she was the greatest thing since sliced bread,” said Maxwell who also emphasized the minister’s immense personal integrity.

“She doesn’t ask anybody for favours, she’s not in anybody’s pocket, she’s an independent person not a parasite.”

Simpson Miller’s courage, it could be interpreted, also came to the fore last year when she split with her parliamentary colleagues in an opposition motion on the depleted fire services by abstaining.

In an exposure of PNP intolerance of independence, the move earned the ire of many of her colleagues who saw Simpson Miller’s stance as a betrayal of parliamentary, if not party loyalty.

The presidential contender, the only woman ever to make an attempt for the top spot in the PNP, has raised eyebrows with comments that she would rule with advisors in an address to PNP supporters in Hanover, which some pundits interpreted as suggestive of her incapacity to manage the country.

“I hear a number of things being said, and I want to caution not to go around telling people that if you don’t have a doctorate, you can’t manage, because there are a number of people – outstanding businessmen of this country – who are driving things in this country, who have never been through the doors of a university,” said Simpson Miller, a latecomer to academia who is going up against noted intellectual heavyweights Dr Peter Phillips and Dr Omar Davies, as well as medical doctor Karl Blythe and Robert Pickersgill, a lawyer, in the leadership race.

“The government, from time to time, seeks advice from them so why do we meet with them to get advice from them if we feel that people without big degrees can’t run anything.”

Simpson Miller is equally forthright in defense of conditions in her predominantly inner city South West St Andrew constituency, insisting in May that while socio-economic conditions were “bad” in her constituency, they were not unique, given the lack of resources for development purposes generally.

“I challenge anybody to show any other inner-city constituency where conditions are better than South West St Andrew,” said the contender.

Her approach, she explained then, was to invest in the people, for example by sponsoring students in school, arguing that it was the better option.

She also pointed to the difficulties of catering to the needs of deprived communities where the MP was always pressured to find resources for pressing needs such as lunch money, filling prescriptions, funerals and school fees, while highlighting a number of initiatives she had pursued to promote development and self-reliance in the area.

She pointed to the renovation of the West Kingston Trade Training Centre with assistance from entrepreneur Ray Hadeed of Serv-Wel Limited; a revolving programme to train youths for jobs at Serv Wel and outside the constituency; as well as housing development, upgrading of schools and playing fields.

One of Simpson Miller’s staunchest supporters, former MP Jennifer Edwards thinks that a Portia Simpson Miller prime ministership would help to soften the sensibilities and feminise the approach to development in a male-dominated political culture.

“The fact that she is a woman is what is needed at this time. Wars and hardware, logic, and so on, are what drive male thinking and approaches. A woman will bring understanding and compassion – something that is new to governance in Jamaica,” said Edwards.

bellanfanted@jamaicaobserver.com