JLP, PNP revving engines for general election
Crawford believes current frenetic pace is unsustainable as parties prep for conferences
Published:Sunday | June 30, 2024 | 12:09 AMErica Virtue - Senior Gleaner Writer
Senior members of Jamaica’s two main political parties say they are treating their respective upcoming annual conference seasons as the last major internal mass mobilisation efforts before the next general elections.
The next parliamentary polls are due by September 2025.
The ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) customarily holds its conference in November, while the opposition People’s National Party (PNP) usually hosts its event in September.
The upcoming conferences will be the first since the overdue local government elections were finally held in February, with the PNP seen by many pundits as overperforming, while the JLP lost some shine.
But as the Holness administration wraps up its fourth year in this term, the political temperature is escalating as the time winds down to-be-announced polls.
“The PNP conference is in September and the JLP conference in November would see the PNP mobilising ahead of the JLP,” JLP Treasurer Daryl Vaz noted last week.
“The JLP obviously does not want to lose the space to the PNP. The JLP had its Area Council One meeting last week, so expect to see both parties, staying on the ground, but as you know, the winner comes from organisation. Therefore, the Government needs to transition from governance to governance and politics,” Vaz told The Sunday Gleaner.
“In terms of an election, only the PM (prime minister) can call that, but from my perspective as a seasoned politician, as a member of parliament (MP) for four terms, I am fully in gear in getting my constituency and the parish of Portland ready for an election any time from the last quarter of 2024 to September 2025. But, I think we need to tone down the personal attacks on one another and campaign on the plans, issues and programmes,” the Portland Western MP said.
PNP General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell said the PNP knows this is an election conference.
“Yes, for us this is the last conference before the elections, barring any unforeseen issues. So we do know that this is our last conference before the general election, which we don’t believe will go into the summer of 2025 either. ... This is it. It’s both our and their last before the elections,” Campbell said on Friday.
He said the party has been systematic in its approach to the conference season and the election campaigning.
“We think that the elections are less than a year away and we expect to have a very good conference, for which we have started planning. The Comrades are going to be in high energy and are going to be out in their numbers. This year, we will be having it early,” said the general secretary, noting that Sunday, September 15, is being eyed for the public session.
“We are in the conference season. [We’re] at the tail end of the divisional conferences, after which we will go to the constituencies in July and August, and finish with the annual conference in September. The party has been working on its strategies towards the conference and election,” said Campbell, likening the strategy to building a house.
Leading up to the local government election, opinion polls had put both the JLP and PNP in a statistical dead heat.
“We had to lay a foundation. We had to build a building, then complete the roof and then the fittings. After which you sweep out the house and get ready to move in. We are at the stage of fine-tuning our proposals, and we have to pivot, to show the difference between a PNP and JLP government, holding them accountable for failures,” he stated.
Opposition Senator Damion Crawford also agrees.
“By natural design, they are going into election conferences when you look at the proximity of the due date for the election. It is a different approach if you think the election is 11 months away versus three months away. And the heightened political temperature that I am seeing now cannot be sustained for much longer … ,” Crawford said on Friday.
According to him, the PNP has to be campaigning in preparation for the announcement.
“So what I am seeing suggests to me that they (the Government) are seeking a window any time soon because we have a responsibility to be prepared. The PNP will have to be in constant campaign because it does not have the ability to tell whether it is tomorrow or June. And you don’t want to predict June and it’s tomorrow,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.
He expects to see increased support for the PNP, which he would like to see translated into a large conference. The JLP, he said, would have to respond because numbers count.