PNP claims it has 7 seats locked and will retake St James Municipal Corporation
Published:Tuesday | December 26, 2023 | 12:12 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Michael Troupe, the chairman of the opposition People’s National Party’s St James Councillor-Caucus, has stated that the party has already taken control of the 17-seat St.James Municipal Corporation even before the next local government election date is declared.
Councillor Leeroy Williams, chairman of the corporation and mayor of Montego Bay, leads the Jamaica Labour Party, which has 13 seats to the PNP’s two.
The other two seats, the Catadupa division and the Salt Spring division, which were won by the PNP’s Gladstone Bent and Sylvan Reid, respectively, are also being managed by Williams under a provision in the Local Government Act because they failed to attend three consecutive general monthly meetings and have been expelled.
“The parish project can report to you that as I speak, we already have nine seats in our pockets, waiting for the election,” Troupe said while providing a status report on the political work being done in the parish during a meet-and-greet event with party leader Mark Golding recently.
“And I can tell you that Comrade Michael ‘Banga’ Allen from the Sommerton division is a force to be reckoned with,” Troupe said of Allen, who will be going up against Jamaica Labour Party sitting councillor Mark McGann in East Central St James.
The PNP did not immediately identify the seats they claimed to have, however, based on political trends, they are counting on the divisions of Montego Bay South, Salt Spring, Catadupa, Sommerton, Spring Mount, Montego Bay West, and Welcome Hall. They are hoping to add Granville and Mount Salem, which they now have, to those divisions.
“One of the candidates I must mention tonight is Comrade Gordon Baldie, who has been in the field for two months. He is going to create history in Montego Bay when he takes the seat of deputy mayor (Richard Vernon). And I want you to also watch Senator [Charles Sinclair] in the Flankers Division because Comrade Allan Bernard is a sleeping giant and he is making headway in there,” Troupe told Golding.
The senior PNP councillor and former deputy mayor, who is also the minority leader of the PNP caucus in the St James Municipal Corporation and councillor for the Granville Division, has assured Golding and other Comrades that the party will defeat the JLP in the next municipal election.
“Comrade leader, St James is ready, and when the next election is called, a PNP mayor is going to run St James Municipal Corporation, and from there, we will give you the keys to Parliament as prime minister,” he said.
Reach out to the people
At the same time, Councillor Kerry Thomas of the Mount Salem division said the PNP remained alive and could once again lead this parish.
“We are alive and well, and it is our responsibility now to reach out to the people. Don’t be afraid. This is ours, and we are going to take it,” Thomas said, while noting that there are many Comrades out there with whom they all need to reconnect.
“We need to recognise that there are Comrades out there in support of us, and we need to exude that confidence and leadership competence,” he noted. “You will be surprised to know the level of support we have out there from the business community.”
For his part, PNP President Mark Golding lauded all the candidates who had come out to represent the party at the level of the St James Municipality, while singing from the same hymn book as councillors Troupe and Thomas, claiming that the PNP will control St James after the next local government election.
He said there was a natural mystique or a wind of change in St James towards the PNP, resulting from his tours of St James Southern and St James East Central recently.
“From the two tours I have done recently, I feel something different following, like a natural mystic blowing in the wind, and I feel that something great is going to happen in St James, and I don’t think many people see it coming,” Golding told his party councillors and councillor candidates.
He argued that people are fed up with the current Government and want the PNP they grew up and fell in love with to return once again to leading the country.
“Comrades who never voted the last time are determined now and want to get rid of the Labourites. They feel the PNP is in a place where they can trust the party not to sell them out and to do what is right for them,” Golding argued.
“I have every confidence that we are going to make it [win the local government election], therefore, I want every one of you as candidates to believe in yourself, go on the road, talk to the people, and tell them what your plans are for how you are going to represent them. Don’t promise them things that you know will never happen, but things that can happen when we are in government,” the PNP president encouraged.