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This was the case with regard to the struggle for Universal Adult
Suffrage in the 1930s and 1940s. It was also the case in the 1950s when the
Party further challenged the existing colonial order by opening up
educational opportunities for all the people and laid the foundation for
self-government and subsequent Independence.
During the 1970s, the P.N.P. spearheaded the most widespread social
reforms ever experienced. They fundamentally transformed the character of
"plantation society" through far-reaching legal reforms, providing
among other things, equality for women, and new rights for children, workers
and the poor.
Throughout its history, the P.N.P. has consistently sought to empower the
Jamaican people, by means of expanded economic and social opportunities and
increased participation in political decision making.
The new century poses new challenges in a global context, which is
markedly different, and which has affected the capacities of states (and
especially small states), to control their own domestic markets, to
determine the structure of global markets and to shape the international
political order.
At the same time, the transformation of the Jamaican society and economy
over the past decades has been such as to generate new expectations and
demands.
The Party, therefore, cannot escape the crucial need to re-orient its
thinking if it is to remain relevant and brace itself to meet the challenges
of a new century and the third millennium.
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