JLP vows to shield Holness from critics

Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Chairman Robert Montague has rallied partisan faithful to defend Prime Minister Andrew Holness from critics, warning them in a spirited speech that attacks on the leadership were geared at weakening his administration.

Montague also gave full-throated endorsement of the Holness administration’s second term in office – a view that is in contrast to less rosy assessments in opinion polls conducted this summer.

The enthusiastic review of the Government – on the back of a shellacking of the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) in the 2020 general election – sought to set the stage for the party’s annual conference, which will be held at Independence Park on November 20.

Montague’s rhetoric struck a chord among the delegates and other Labourites who thronged the Area Council One meeting at the Edith Dalton James High Sunday in a bid to drum up support for its prospective candidate, Dorlan Francis, in the PNP stronghold of St Andrew Western.

The party chairman urged Labourites to “protect” Holness, who is also leader of the JLP, from vilification.

Charging that it was a ploy of the Opposition to target its leaders, Montague said that the PNP had strategically sought to denounce and topple Alexander Bustamante, Donald Sangster, Hugh Shearer, Edward Seaga, and Bruce Golding.

“Many times dem rise up on Andrew and criticise him, and we, as Labourites, always say, ‘Cho, Andrew can deal with it.’ We must not allow that to happen. Andrew is doing an excellent job running the country. We must protect him when that happen,” the St Mary Western member of parliament said.

“... When you attack Andrew Holness, you attack the Jamaica Labour Party. When you attack Andrew Holness, you attack the chairman of the area council, you attack the mayor of Kingston, you attack the councillor, you attack the councillor caretaker, you attack the MP caretaker, the G2K president. When you attack Andrew Holness, all of us must stand up, rise up, and defend him.”

The 50-year-old Holness, the only Jamaican prime minister to have been born after Independence, has enjoyed a cult of popularity that has helped the JLP secure two consecutive terms in office.

Though there are concerns about corruption and the management of crime for a Government in midterm, Holness ranked good or very good among 38 per cent of respondents in a July Don Anderson poll. Thirty-five per cent rated him as average.

His grading as poor or very poor, 27 per cent, was the same in 2022 as a year earlier.

Montague also heaped praise on the prime minister for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the New Social Housing Programme.

“This Government is doing an excellent job … . He is going to be the prime minister for a long, long, long, long, long, long time. One of my missions is to ensure that Andrew Holness becomes the longest-serving prime minister of Jamaica,” the party chairman said.

That record is held by the PNP’s P. J. Patterson, who was prime minister from 1992 to 2006.

Montague told party supporters that he expects a massive turnout for conference on November 20. He even quipped that the party might have to relocate the event from the National Arena to the National Stadium, which has a capacity of more than 30,000.

“The Labourites from St Mary, we will full the Arena from the back to the front, from the top to the bottom … . Last night, I was in Area Council Two, and dem tell me fi tell unnu this morning that if unnu ramp roun fi defend the leader, dem coming to cork up Arena on November 20. No space will be left for Area Council one,” he said.

Duane Smith, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) councillor for the Chancery Hall division in St Andrew North Western, touted that his Area Council will have 15 buses heading to the conference.

“It’s going to be a big testing event, Shower Labourite,” Smith said of the imminent conference.