CALL BY-ELECTIONS
Charles Sr urges PM to consider filling vacant seats by year-end as Marsha Smith quits
Published:Wednesday | September 4, 2024 | 12:11 AMEdmond Campbell/Senior Staff Reporter
With Marsha Smith’s resignation as a legislator and state minister, a former senior figure in the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is suggesting that Prime Minister Andrew Holness should call by-elections to fill two currently vacant parliamentary seats, as well as a third seat that will become vacant by the end of next month.
Smith, a first-term member of parliament (MP) and the junior education minister, resigned with immediate effect on Tuesday exactly four years after being elected to represent St Ann North Eastern.
With a vacancy left by Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert in Trelawny Southern last September yet to be filled, the Government is set to lose a third parliamentarian by the end of October, when Finance Minister and St Andrew North Western MP Dr Nigel Clarke leaves representational politics.
There are also two vacant municipal seats as a result of the deaths of Morant Bay’s Rohan ‘Washy’ Bryan (PNP) in St Thomas in May and Aenon Town’s Marjorie McLeod-McFarlane (JLP) in Clarendon on Sunday.
Former House Speaker Pearnel Charles Sr believes that the ruling party is in a position to retain four of the five seats, to include those vacant in the two municipalities.
Charles says the prime minister should consider calling by-elections before year-end.
At the same time, Dr Dayton Campbell, general secretary of the People’s National Party (PNP), has indicated that the opposition party would not be participating in any by-elections called at this time as it is preparing for the next national elections, constitutionally due by September 2025.
“It is concerning as to why the Jamaica Labour Party would have forced their member of parliament to resign. It seems as if they want to play politics and sort out the business of the JLP with state resources. We are not participating in a process like that,” Campbell told The Gleaner.
‘LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE’
He said with three vacant seats, the PM should use the opportunity to send all Jamaicans to the polls and “let the people decide if they want to continue on this path on this downward spiral or if they want change”.
Dalrymple-Philibert resigned almost a year ago as she faced eight criminal charges for making a false statement in her statutory declarations after omitting a Mercedes-Benz motor vehicle from her statutory filings between 2015 and 2021. She said the omission was a genuine oversight.
Clarke is set to take up the post of deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund in a matter of weeks.
Political commentator Lloyd B. Smith suggested that Smith’s sudden resignation on Tuesday might be a strategic move in a political game. He proposed that she could be a pawn in a broader strategy by the PM and the party, potentially related to the impending departure of the finance minister and the need to find his replacement.
“Why should she resign when we all know she was not going to run back? Why not just stay there until the term ends, which I doubt will go up to September of next year. Clearly, it must be a strategic move on the part of the PM, and we wait with bated breath to see what that will be,” Smith said.
“Of course, this could prove to be somewhat disingenuous, in that, if the other two vacant seats are not brought into play, in terms of a by-election, then it would suggest that the PM is manipulating our democratic system, which would not, I think, be a fair thing to do,” he said.
Asked if it would be in the best interest of the PM to call by-elections to fill the vacant seats, Smith said it does not mean that the JLP would win the three parliamentary seats.
While signalling that St Ann North Eastern was a relatively safe JLP seat, Smith said Trelawny Southern and St Andrew North Western could be up for grabs.
“I don’t really understand the machinations, one can only assume that the PM, being an astute political strategist, knows what he is doing, but he ought not to fiddle with our democratic way of life,” Smith argued.
“If there is going to be a by-election, all three constituencies should face the polls, and if it is that it is only St Ann North Eastern, it would suggest that the people of Jamaica are being taken for granted in a game of political chess,” he added.