Henriques tries to rekindle Labourite spark

The Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Phillip Henriques is making a second attempt to reach Gordon House, but this time, he believes that the ‘neglected’ people of Clarendon North Western will bring him across the line to end the People’s National Party’s (PNP) dominance.

The seat has been represented by the PNP’s Richard Azan, who won three of the last four general elections, the only blemish being the defeat in 2007 at the hands of the JLP’s Michael Stern.

“I find that the representation that is up in this seat is very poor. There are many, many things within the constituency that need to be rectified, and I believe that I can bring much better representation,” he told The Gleaner before embarking on a community visit in the Nine Turns area.

The businessman is pushing a message of economic prosperity built on helping farmers find markets, as well as skills and infrastructural upgrades, among others. That platform, he argues, will be central to winning the majority of the votes from the 27,173 people on the electoral roll in the constituency.

“Across the entire constituency, water is a problem. There are also problems with our roadways. There are some roadways which have been paid attention, but many have not, and that is affecting our farmers, the produce, and the transportation costs,” said the former JLP treasurer.

He was backed up by Effort residents Merle Platt, 70, and Joy Huntley, 51.

“I don’t have any water at mi house,” Platt said. “If we never have the river here so, we dead.”

“We a suffer fi water, and we have the line and we can’t get nuh water. We have to go at least ’bout three miles for drinking water.”

Huntley said that with under three weeks to go before the polls, she had no intention of making the trek to the polling station but was open to being convinced by the two prospective candidates.

“Six of us live in the household, and we nuh decide to vote this time,” she said.

POLLS A DISTRACTION

Aswell Wright, 55, said he cannot entertain any discussion about elections now because, according to him, the polls distract from the response to the coronavirus pandemic that has affected almost 22 million globally, killing 772,000 up to Sunday.

“The whole entire world open and see exactly what is taking place. If a conscious individual a go tek elections in these times, that is not consciousness,” he said as gospel music from a grave-digging at his house punctuated the air.

“Don’t expect me to vote when this sickness is going on. My family not gonna vote, either,” Wright told The Gleaner.

Henriques is mindful that he does not have a long history with the constituency, having only been installed as the JLP’s representative last year.

But he said he has been satisfied with the reception and will be using the support to wrest control of the seat won seven times for the JLP out of the 17 general elections held since 1944.

The seat was first won by the PNP’s William Linton.

“They’ve encouraged me; they’ve been great people. They’ve been telling me since I’ve come in here that it’s time for a change,” Henriques said.

The seat became Labourite-leaning owing to the JLP’s Edwin Allen winning it on four occasions up to 1983.

Victory for Azan would be the first time since Allen won the seat in 1972 that a party would be ruling for three consecutive elections.

Henriques admits that the JLP’s dominance has been challenged over the past two decades but believes that he can change that.

“The path to victory has to be to maximise our divisions that are stronger for our party and to pull out our people from across the constituency,” he said, noting that he would have to devise a special plan to pull out votes in the Spaldings division, where the PNP is strongest.

In the only general election win for the JLP in the last four, Michael Stern, the standard-bearer in 2007, while not winning in Spaldings, came within 385 votes, the closest of any JLP candidate in the period.

To win, Stern polled 7,828 votes, the highest for the party since 1980. The 2007 election also saw a 70 per cent voter turnout, the highest since 2002. The constituency has averaged a 63 per cent voter turnout since 2002, well above the national average for the period of 55 per cent.

For the last two elections, Azan polled 8,209 and 8,135, respectively, to beat Stern. The last time a JLP candidate polled more than 8,000 votes was in 1980, when Allen beat back the challenge of Percival Minott.

The strategic focus, a member of Henrique’s team said, will be in the battleground division of Thompson Town, where the margin between both parties since 2002 has not exceeded 177 votes, the past two being 66 and 76, respectively.

In the 2016 local government polls, the JLP’s Collin Henry edged the PNP’s Kavin Shirley by 11 votes to win the Thompson Town division.

“Our canvasses are showing fantastic numbers, and our job is going to be getting our Labour Party people out,” Henriques said. He’s banking, too, on the boost from a recent visit by the popular prime minister, Andrew Holness.

jovan.johnson@gleanerjm.com