Ailing senior citizen gives thumbs up to Holness
SEVENTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD CARLTON Taylor leaned quietly on a pair of crutches at the corner of Great House Boulevard and Mona Road in St Andrew yesterday and watched as hundreds of Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) supporters pranced around and waved anything green that they could find.
Taylor revealed that he has been diagnosed with a bone infection and recently spent two months at the University Hospital of t he West Indies (UHWI) undergoing surgery that has already cost him more than $250,000.
“Dem say di bone rotten, and dem cut me foot, and still me haffi a live a UC every day. Hear wha di doctor tell me say: every six weeks me foot fi cut fi dem put in beads,” he shared.
Taylor said that he recently had to fork out $9,000 to purchase medication prescribed by his doctors.
The 72-year-old said that this was what influenced his decision to support Andrew Holness and the JLP and pushed him to show up at Mona High School to witness the nomination of the party’s candidate for St Andrew Eastern, Fayval Williams.
SECOND CHANCE
“Ano seh me a look help from politics, but the vibes weh a gwaan right now, we see the suffering weh a gwaan,” Taylor told The Gleaner as vuvuzelas blared around him.
“Me a go fi the young one. Me can’t tek no more old one right now. Give the young one a privilege,” he reasoned.
Taylor said Holness “made a mistake” during his short stint as prime minister in 2011 but argued t hat t he JLP leader deserved a second chance because he is more experienced now.
“Ano say we love him, but him really up fi the country. Him mek a mistake. Now him no supposed to mek no mistake again,” he insisted.
Williams is challenging the People’s National Party candidate André Hylton, who won the constituency by
a 254-vote margin in the 2011 general election when he defeated JLP candidate Dr St Aubyn Bartlett.
Hylton was nominated just over two hours before Williams, and both candidates expressed confidence that they
would emerge as the
parliamentary representative for the constituency after the February 25 general election.
“We are going to increase that margin,” Hylton insisted.
“I get it [confidence] from the people. When I walk and when I talk with them, that gives me confidence because they have to wake up on election day and want to go out [and vote]”, Williams said.