Battle for KGN
Parties using propitious internal polls to power up supporters in push to Feb 26
Published:Tuesday | February 13, 2024 | 12:13 AMKimone Francis/Senior Staff Reporter
An intense battle for the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) has Jamaica’s two main political parties claiming a majority of the divisions via internal polls with the local government elections only two weeks away.
A single vote swung the municipal corporation in the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) favour in the 2016 polls, when it edged the People’s National Party (PNP) in the Rae Town division by a whisker.
But in a statement early Monday, former Kingston Mayor Delroy Williams claimed that the results on February 26 for the KSAMC will shock the country.
“Based on what we are seeing and the reports we have been getting from the field and from the data we have, [our prediction] is that the PNP will suffer its largest defeat at the polls in a local government election in Kingston and St Andrew,” Williams said in an audio clip.
Williams, the incumbent representative for the Seivwright division in the KSAMC, said this means that the JLP will register what he describes as a historic victory in the municipality.
“That is the information we are seeing. That is what we are seeing on the ground. We have tested it and it’s true. It will happen; it will happen,” Williams said emphatically.
He said the governing party will flip divisions within the municipality that will not only “stun” the opposition party, but the country, similar to the result of the 2020 general election, when the JLP gained control of the Kingston Central constituency, long-considered a PNP bastion.
There are more to come, said Williams, who noted that there are divisions that are turning to the JLP, which will guarantee its victory.
“So, the JLP will retain Kingston and St Andrew with a larger majority,” he asserted.
The party won 21 of the 40 divisions in the Corporate Area and gained two additional divisions with the crossing of the floor of former PNP representatives Kari Douglas and Venesha Phillips.
The division count prior to the announcement of the election stood at 23-17 in favour of the JLP.
But Julian Robinson, the member of parliament for St Andrew South Eastern and PNP’s election manager for Kingston and St Andrew, has scoffed at Williams’ claim, declaring that it is the reverse.
Robinson said the opposition party, based on its data, will take home a minimum of 21 divisions.
Robinson told The Gleaner that the PNP will win the latter two divisions – Trafalgar and Papine – it lost due to Douglas and Phillips’ switch and pick up at least two more.
“Our poll numbers plus our canvass, most importantly our canvass that we have done in the targeted divisions. As you know, there are some seats that you are strong in, some that you are not so strong in. We are confident for the marginal ones that we will take them,” said Robinson.
Claims of victory aside, there are concerns within the Rae Town division, which was last represented by the JLP’s Rosalie Hamilton, that political violence may feature heavily in the upcoming polls.
During nomination day activities last Thursday, Hamilton claimed that political violence caused her to secure the division by only one vote in 2016.
She called for “excessive” policing in the division for the election period.
“We are using this opportunity to ask the commissioner of police to secure people of the Rae Town division from evil that consistently reigns every election in this division,” said Hamilton.
The Gleaner contacted the head of the Kingston Central Police Division, Superintendent Beresford Williams, who said that the division is calm.
“Right now, the area of concern that the [former] councillor spoke to, we are leading an initiative and that started before the election was announced,” he said.
The senior lawman said that having met with the different gangs in the division, it was agreed that they want the peace that now obtains to remain.
He said that only last Wednesday, a walkthrough of the area was done, where the police and Project STAR collaborated for a football competition that will involve the gangsters in the same space.
“We don’t have any issues right now. That hasn’t been so for weeks now,” he said on Monday.