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Holness mourns former Clarendon North MP Laurie Broderick

Published:Thursday | September 5, 2019 | 12:14 AM
Broderick
Broderick

Prime Minister Andrew Holness has hailed the late former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) politician Lawrence ‘Laurie’ Broderick as a great public servant who made a significant contribution to the country.

Broderick, an attorney-at-law and former one-term member of parliament for Clarendon North, died yesterday.

In addition to his chosen profession of law, Laurie was also a former army captain.

Holness said that Broderick made good contributions to the Parliament and to the wider political leadership in the country.

Broderick, in the 2007 general election, delivered a shocking 227-vote win over Horace Dalley, taking the seat for the JLP. But in the 2011 general election, Dalley, who had previously served unbroken from 1989, returned to beat Broderick by 1,705 votes.

The former outspoken politician had switched allegiance at one time to the People’s National Party (PNP).

Broderick once joked that his relationship with Dalley was comparable to that of Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, two heavyweight boxers who became friends after their bouts.

He told The Gleaner in 2016 that “politics is not a spectator sport. You like to be in the arena, and, frankly speaking, I don’t think enough respect was there for me in the Labour Party. I am not a man who can sit down in the gallery all day”.

Broderick’s father, Percival Broderick, was a member of the PNP and served as MP from 1949 to 1955 in North East Clarendon. His brother, also named Percival, represented the JLP and was MP for North Central Clarendon between 1972 and 1989.