Opposition Leader Mark Golding addressing the House of Representatives recently. (Photo: Llewellyn Wynter)

Political theatrics are very seductive. And mimicked populist gimmicks are very catchy, especially for Opposition parties and, spectacularly so, for an Opposition like the People’s National Party (PNP), which suffered its third-consecutive general election defeat recently.

Serious Oppositions do not only identify problems. More importantly, serious Oppositions also pinpoint practical solutions. The bland side orders which the Mark Golding-led PNP continues to serve-up as a full-course meal in the wake of the passage of Hurricane Melissa will only cause indigestion and/or worse.

Golding’s doings just days after the passage of the mentioned Category 5 hurricane told me that the devastation all over Jamaica had not positively shifted the temperament of the PNP president one iota. It was the same ole “Massa Mark” — recall that Dr Nigel Clarke, former minister of finance and the public service, described Mark Golding as “Massa Mark” during the 2023/24 Budget Debate.

Melissa has worsened nearly every social and economic pre-existing condition; still Mark Golding’s PNP is very conspicuously fixated on unseriousness.

Hurricane Melissa has also inflicted deep structural wounds to Jamaica. It’s not a time for political flippancy, retailing and wholesaling of general election result envy, and/or performative gimmicks. These rotten tactics do not qualify as statecraft in a functioning participatory democracy like Jamaica’s.

At its most recent presser the PNP reminded well-thinking citizens that it is great at political theatre, but little else. One after the other Members of Parliament from the Opposition benches spouted accounts of how they and their supporters were being “victimised” regarding the distribu