Phillips accuses Golding of seeking to gain traction with traitor label
Published:Tuesday | February 6, 2024 | 5:52 AMKimone Francis/Senior Staff Reporter -
Firebrand councillor Venesha Phillips has hit back at Mark Golding over his “traitor” comment, calling the People’s National Party (PNP) president “desperate for attention”.
Golding, while introducing prospective PNP candidates contesting local government divisions in Kingston and St Andrew, said Phillips’ political career in the Papine division would fizzle.
“And for the Papine division, I bring to you the man who is going to show Venesha Phillips that if you are a traitor you do not survive. Success cannot be yours,” Golding said as he introduced Darrington Ferguson as the party’s prospective candidate.
He made the comment during a PNP meeting at the Anthony Spaulding Sports Complex on Sunday in the St Andrew South constituency where he is the member of parliament (MP).
Phillips, the sitting councillor for the Papine division, was last November introduced as the newest high-profile member of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) during the party’s annual conference at the National Arena in Kingston.
The introduction, which was followed by her crossing of the floor at the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation, came after at least two years of feuding with her then party.
Phillips has also not minced words in her ongoing criticism of Golding since he assumed leadership of the opposition party three years ago.
On Monday, she told The Gleaner that Golding’s comment is demonstrative to Jamaicans of why he must not be taken seriously at the local or central government level.
Phillips said, at this stage in local politics, the electorate is listening for effective messaging from the country’s two main political parties.
“But Mr Golding, who is bereft of ideas and has nothing to contribute either to local or central government, would find the time to focus his campaign on the candidate and councillor for the Papine division, Venesha Phillips,” she said.
The second-term councillor, who has been tagged as controversial in some political quarters, said she was focused on the message of the JLP which is to campaign on the party’s achievements and to tell constituents and the wider Jamaica the direction in which it intends to take local government.
She said the focus is on ensuring that Jamaicans recognise that it is the JLP that cares about the vulnerable and that it is the party that is modernising the garbage maintenance and collection system.
In the same breath, Phillips pointed to three former JLP members who joined the PNP and questioned whether Golding believed that they are traitors for doing so.
“Jamaicans have seen through Mark Golding a long time ago. That’s a desperate man clutching at straws… . One would understand why Mr Golding would be hung up on survival issues. His own political survival is weighing in the balance and on the 26th of February the first nail in the coffin of Mark Golding will be driven by the Jamaica Labour Party,” Phillips declared.
But the councillor did not stop there and addressed, too, comments made by Natalie Garvey, the MP for St Catherine North Central.
Garvey, while speaking at the political meeting, said the JLP was able to “trick” former members of the PNP who joined the governing party.
“Yuh get mix up inna yuh head and say, 'Yaah, PNP' and 'Yaah, socialist' and yuh go jump ship. Socialist nuh jump ship. Socialist nuh switch,” said Garvey.
“Socialism is a way of life. It’s a philosophy. It’s our ideology. When yuh switch that means you were never a socialist,” she said emphatically to thunderous applause.
In a swift rebuttal, Phillips said the PNP, in its current state, is confused, and remains in an internal tug of war.
She said that the party, under the leadership of Golding is not a socialist party.
“Mark Golding made that categorically clear when he removed the concept of democratic socialism by which the PNP had identified for over 80 years. What is very clear is that some of those in the 14 seem to have forgotten that they are now existing in a party that does not promote, accept or subscribe to the concept of democratic socialism,” said Phillips.
The councillor is expected to contest the election for the JLP. She tallied 2,208 votes to win the division for the PNP in the 2016 local government elections, defeating George Planto of the JLP who amassed 1,931 votes.
In the 2012 local government elections, Phillips defeated the JLP’s Norman Wallen by 816, securing 2,084 votes to his 1,268.
However, while contesting the St Andrew Eastern seat in the 2020 general election against the JLP’s Fayval Williams, Phillips lost the division by 836 votes, polling 1,903 to 2,739.