Golding: It’s a preliminary general election
FLAMES OF orange lit the midmorning sky from Collie Smith Drive in St Andrew South to the nomination centre on Lyndhurst Road, with People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding leading a throng of supporters and their two candidates for the February 26 local government elections (LGE).
Golding walked the entire journey, accompanied by a group of what were initially hundreds of supporters that became larger and larger every 50 metres along the road named after the late, talented Jamaica and West Indian cricketer Collie Smith.
Golding, the opposition leader, said the time has not only come for the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), but that their time was up.
“The people are telling the JLP that their time is up. We in the People’s National Party (PNP) have said ‘time come’, but the people have told the Government that time is up,” Golding said yesterday as he stopped to talk with Comrades on Collie Smith Drive, in his constituency, the bastion of the PNP support in the Corporate Area. It was a mid-morning dance party in the constituency as amid the large show of support, it was hard to find someone not wearing anything orange.
Golding said he was pleased to accompany Sarah Marshall, the party’s candidate for the Trench Town division, and Louise Newland for the Admiral Town division. A massive banner bearing an image of Newland was flown among the crowd as well as T-shirts bearing the likenesses of the two Comrades.
A handful of JLP supporters watched from Rema as the crowd walked briskly towards Lyndhurst Road and at one point were engaged in political banter during the process.
“A money dem a dweet fah. We a dweet fi di love,”said one woman over and over again. Vuvuzelas drowned out the charges from the Labourites.
Golding said he was happy that nomination day for the longdelayed polls was finally here.
“We have been waiting on this for a few years now. The Government has been running from it, but they couldn’t run anymore. Time catch up with them, and time come,” Golding told journalists and supporters following the completion of nomination.
“The whole Jamaica is treating this like a general election. It’s like a preliminary general. The excitement is at a different level to what LGE normally encounter. The people are dying to send a signal to this Government that they want to get rid of them … ,” Golding stated.
He said the Government has broken the trust with the people and that the people want to send them a message.
Newland said there was need for greater focus on the people at the local level, and the prime minister should know that“nobody can sleep with their doors open”, a reference to Holness’ famous election promise to make the nation safer for its people if they voted for the JLP.