Fri | Mar 29, 2024

Target Terrelonge - Comrades blast ‘fake Rastaman’ as De La Haye installed

Published:Monday | February 17, 2020 | 12:00 AMRomario Scott/Gleaner Writer
A whistling Winston De La Haye whips up Comrades during a St Catherine East Central meeting at Cedar Grove Academy in Gregory Park on Sunday.
PNP President Dr Peter Phillips is thronged by supporters at yesterday’s St Catherine East Central meeting.
PNP supporters celebrate the installation of prospective candidate for the St Catherine East Central seat, Dr Winston De La Haye
1
2
3

People’s National Party (PNP) surrogates last night ripped into the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and Alando Terrelonge, the current member of parliament for St Catherine East Central, as they formally installed Dr Winston De La Haye to be the PNP’s challenger.

De La Haye entered the Cedar Grove Academy last evening donning his orange colours to fist-pumping Comrades alongside his party President Dr Peter Phillips.

A high-spirited De La Haye took the stage touting his mantra, ‘Come wi come fi tek it’, referring to the constituency.

He said he has been walking community streets and was overwhelmed by the level of support he has been receiving.

“I feel loved and certainly see it as a humbling experience to be here representing East Central St Catherine,” De La Haye said, revealing that it was Horace Dalley who told him to expect a call from Phillips to enlist him in representational politics.

“Comrades, I am here to tell you that I am landed on the ground ready. Six weeks have become like six months. Comrades, if you think you seeing pressure, is more pressure we come fi tun up,” he said as he spoke of his experiences on the ground in the constituency.

De La Haye replaces attorney-at-law Arnaldo Brown, who was defeated by Terrelonge in February 2016 by 479 votes.

Phillips said that De La Haye was one of the most qualified professionals in Jamaica and represented the best of the country.

From early on in the meeting, Terrelonge was the bullseye target for bashing by the Comrades.

Veteran PNP politician K.D. Knight told De La Haye that he could call on him for help at any time in furtherance of the party’s effort to defeat the JLP’s standard-bearer.

He, however, made it known who the man was in the race.

“I don’t want anybody to misunderstand me; I am saying as far as we are concerned, Winston is the man!” said Knight, who whipped the crowd into a frenzy with his pointed refrain.

Knight said he was confident De La Haye could win the seat for the PNP in the next general election, which is constitutionally due in 2021 but is widely expected to be called this year.

WOBBLY CHALLENGER

Mark Golding, who followed Knight in taking the platform, noted that De La Haye was from his constituency and was touted to beat the incumbent.

He also took a swipe at Terrelonge, who serves as a state minister in the education, youth and information ministry.

“Remember, we don’t know if this is a sprint, a 100m, a 400m, or a 1,500m or 5,000m race, so you have to keep going. But you come to an almighty start, and I know seh Terrelonge, when him see the straightness of the man who is coming against him, going to wobble in his boots,” Golding, member of parliament for St Andrew South, said.

Meanwhile, Dr Dayton Campbell, who was recently brought back into the fold of the PNP’s inner circle following a bruising presidential race back in September, had a few words, too, about Terrelonge.

“The little fake Rastaman weh name Terrelonge ... , all me hear him talking about is toxic masculinity. Me ask him, ‘A wah dat?’ Every day him get up, him deh pon ‘toxic masculinity’, and I don’t know what is that.

“We want to give you a member of parliament that will represent the issues in the constituency. We want to give you a member of parliament that will listen to your concerns and will develop programmes and policies that will fix your concerns and ensure that your children can go to schools and you have good road to drive pon and you can get some of the prosperity, too,” Campbell told PNP supporters yesterday evening.

romario.scott@gleanerjm.com