Juliet Holness running on her record
Published:Thursday | July 30, 2020 | 12:19 AMChristopher Serju/Senior Gleaner Writer
St Andrew East Rural Member of Parliament (MP) Juliet Holness is banking on her record of performance, especially in the many farming communities of her constituency, to convince the electorate to give her a second term in the House of Representatives.
While she believes that she has done enough to come out tops in the impending polls, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) parliamentarian is leaving nothing to chance as she looks to triumph over JLP turncoat Joan Gordon-Webley, who will challenge Holness on a People’s National Party (PNP) ticket.
St Andrew East Rural is familiar ground for Gordon-Webley, who held the seat for the JLP from 1980 to 1989. Since then, she has had a dismal run at the polls.
In the 1989 election, she lost the seat, and when she returned as an independent candidate in 1993, the voters also rejected her.
Returning to the fold of the JLP in 2007, she challenged Maxine Henry-Wilson in St Andrew South Eastern and was beaten.
In 2011, Gordon-Webley went back to St Andrew East Rural on behalf of the JLP to take on the PNP’s Damion Crawford and lost by a 259-vote margin. She managed to secure 9,375 votes to Crawford’s 9,634.
NOT FOCUSED ON RIVAL
But Holness has indicated that she is more focused on her record than her rival.
“I am never overconfident in anything I do. I have worked hard from the day I became MP and will continue to work until the day they call election again,” Holness told The Gleaner on Wednesday as she opened the resurfaced Guava Ridge to Content Road.
The road, which had been in disrepair for decades, had been blamed f0r the underdevelopment of several communities despite a number of tourist attractions being located in the area. Now, residents are looking forward to brighter days.
Holness is banking on the anticipated multiplier effects of this and other improvements to retain her seat.
“It is not what I think. It’s what the people of East Rural think, and across the entire constituency, they have told me resoundingly that they are not joking about going out to vote for me when the next election is called.”
In the 2016 polls, Holness secured 10,101 votes to the PNP’s Imani Duncan-Price’s 9,432. Holness took the Mavis Bank, Dallas, and Kintyre divisions with an average margin of 400 votes, and Gordon Town by more than 700. In the PNP bastion of Harbour View, Duncan-Price bagged 1,312 more votes.
“So many achievements,” Holness boasted. “Let us take them by division. So in terms of farm roads, we have done Flamstead, Tower Hill, and Dublin ... . In terms of road-patching, they would have had from Copper Ridge all the way to Guava Ridge, down into Mahogany Vale.”
She continued: “Mount Charles, which is a heavy PNP community, they were overjoyed to see the volume of work done in restoring their bridge and dealing with the flooding issues they used to have. It’s now a thing of the past. The road is paved just like this – very beautiful concrete work done in the area – so they are very happy.”
The MP said that as the wife of Prime Minister Andrew Holness, she does not enjoy any special favours.
“Being the prime minister’s wife is very good. However, my husband is one who ensures that there is equity across the board. So like the other 62 MPs – I being the 63rd one – I have to go out there and fight hard for the people of East Rural St Andrew in order to get development into my constituency,” she said.