Both JLP, PNP confident of victory in St Ann
WILL THE February 26 local government election results for the St Ann municipality end in a 8-8 tie between the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP) as it did in 2007?
Neither side thinks so, with both expressing confidence in winning the majority.
Both parties registered a full slate of 16 candidates for the election on Thursday on a day which the commandant for the St Ann police, Senior Superintendent Dwight Powell, said went “Very smoothly; there were no issues”.
Of the four local government elections held since the turn of the century, the JLP has won twice, the PNP once, and a tie in the 2007 staging.
In the 2003 election, the JLP won 10-6 and chose Delroy Giscombe as Mayor of St Ann’s Bay. In 2007 the PNP gained two seats to tie the result at 8-8, with Giscombe retained as mayor. In 2012 the PNP completed the turnaround, winning 11-5, but the JLP duly returned the favour in 2016, winning 11-5, which is the current standing.
“I am expecting the reverse, where the PNP will be winning back most of the seats that were lost in 2016,” Brown, who has a stronghold on the Borobridge division in St Ann South Western, told The Gleaner.
“I have won five elections and I am confident that I am going to win the next one with a bigger margin than the one before,” Brown said.
Brown has not lost an election this century, and while his count of five straight goes back to 1998, majority leader Sydney Stewart remains unbeaten in this century, with four straight victories in the Bamboo division in St Ann North Western.
The JLP has the majority in three of four constituencies, (which has four divisions each) and according to Stewart, who served as mayor in the last administration, this will change.
“We certainly are going to take all four (constituencies) back to the Labour Party,” Stewart said after nomination activities in Browns Town, St Ann North Western on Thursday.
“We’re going to increase our numbers in the municipality, we’re now 11 and we’re going to move that up to 13,” he added.
He explained that his confidence is based on the job the JLP councillors have done.
For the JLP to increase its number to 13, the PNP would have to lose two of the five divisions it won the last time out.
The five divisions and representatives are Bensonton (Lydia Richards); Claremont (Lambert Weir), Borobridge (Winston Brown), Beecher Town (Ian Bell), and Calderwood (Paul McFarlane).
In Bensonton, Richards was replaced by the PNP with Clovis Gohagen, to which she responded by being nominated as an independent candidate on Thursday. Her candidacy could weaken the PNP support base and give the JLP an increased chance of capturing Bensonton. The PNP has comfortably won the Bensonton division in the last six elections, dating back to 1998, the widest margin of victory coming in 2012 when Richards beat the JLP’s Sandra Guerrier-Brown by 1,359 to 227.
DRAMATIC TURNAROUND
Claremont is another longstanding division for the PNP, the party having won it on the last six occasions, since 1990, by comfortable margins. After winning for the PNP by the widest margin of 1,494 in 2012, Lambert Weir saw his margin of victory reduced to 304 in 2016, in a threeway race. Weir polled 991 votes, while independent candidate, Wayne Simpson surprised many by polling 687, ahead of Maurice Walters 629, for the JLP. On February 26, newcomer, Kaydian Harty for the PNP, will go up against Shasha Lee of the JLP.
The JLP last won the Borobridge division in 1990, by 59 points. Brown made a dramatic turnaround for the PNP in the next election in 1998, to win 1,157 votes.
He has won every election since then, but by reduced margins.
The PNP won the Beecher Town division by over 600 and over 500 in 1990 and 1998, respectively, but lost by over 200 in the following election in 2003. Three subsequent PNP victories via Ian ‘Trumpet’ Bell, by an average of over 300 votes, restored that party’s dominance in the division.
For the past six elections, dating back to 1990, the PNP has won the Calderwood division by an average of over 560 votes, thanks in part to former mayor Vinette Robb who won three consecutive elections.
Sitting councillor, Paul McFarlane, will represent the PNP against the JLP’s Pauline Trowers on February 26.
In Claremont, first-timer, Kaydian Harty, will seek to hold on to the Claremont division for the PNP, as she was nominated to go up against the Shasha Lee of the JLP.
In another match-up that draws interest, another PNP newcomer Nicola Hamilton, will challenge former Mayor Michael Belnavis for the Ocho Rios division. The current lineup are Bensonton - Clover Gohagen; Claremont - Kaydian Harty, Borobridge - Winston Brown, Beecher Town - Ian Bell; and Calderwood- Paul McFarlane.