Grant fails to stop JAS elections

The election of officers to form the executive for the Kingston and St Andrew Association of Branch Societies of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) will go ahead despite a last-ditch effort by former president Norman Grant to stall proceedings.

"The elections will go ahead tomorrow (today), starting at 10 a.m., at the Horticultural Society in Hope Pastures. We have put everything in place for the elections, and the various branch societies have been mobilised to come out and support the candidate of their choice," President of the JAS Lenworth Fulton told The Gleaner.

He was responding to an email from Grant, who, in a letter addressed to the JAS president and chief executive officer Christopher Emanuel and copied to The Gleaner, cited a number of reasons why the elections should be postponed.

"Please note that the meeting that was arranged for January 3, 2019, as a compromise to facilitate the election of officers, cannot be held as a number of matters are still outstanding ... . We are confident that these matters, and others that may arise, can be cleared up within the time to have the meeting on January 28 but certainly not by the 3rd of January 2019. There would be too much chaos," Grant stated in his letter.

However, Fulton insisted that the elections would go ahead because the JAS had done everything by the book in order to ensure free and fair elections, representing the will of the farmers from the respective branches.