Labourites welcome Dalrymple-Philibert’s return, but Comrades won’t contest by-election
Published:Thursday | October 31, 2024 | 12:07 AMAdrian Frater/Gleaner Writer
Western Bureau:
Just days after Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) supporters in Trelawny South staged a protest in Albert Town, calling for their party leader, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, to reinstall former member of parliament (MP) Marisa ‘Mama D’ Dalrymple-Philibert as the party’s caretaker, their call has been answered.
Yesterday, Holness announced that “by popular demand”, Dalrymple-Philibert, who had resigned as the constituency’s MP at the same time she stepped down as Speaker of the House of Representative in September 2023, amid a damning Integrity Commission report, was back as the party’s standard-bearer.
On Monday, JLP councillors Liston Waugh, of the Ulster Spring division, and Devon Davis, of the Albert Town division, took to the streets in Albert Town with scores of party supporters, calling for Dalrymple-Philibert, who they described as their ‘four-star general’, to be reinstalled as their candidate.
Yesterday, following Holness’ announcement, ‘Labourites’ across the constituency were in a buoyant mood, heaping praise on the prime minister for answering their call by giving them the candidate of their choice in Dalrymple-Philibert, who won the seat on the JLP’s ticket in 2007, 2011, 2016, and 2020.
“We are elated in South Trelawny. We are ready for the by-election. This is a proven candidate, a winning candidate. We are 100 per cent sure that we will bring home the seat,” Davis told The Gleaner yesterday. “As I told The Gleaner before, even after she resigned as MP, she never left us. She worked closely with us in the last local government election in which we took home all four divisions.
Dalrymple-Philibert will have to hit the ground running as she is slated to face a by-election on November 22 to fill the vacancy her resignation created. Nomination Day has been set for November 6.
While Davis and his colleague Labourites are looking forward to the by-election, she could well find herself without an opponent as according to the People’s National Party’s prospective candidate, funeral home director Paul Patmore, the party will not be contesting the by-election.
“The party has taken a decision not to contest this by-election. We will be here waiting to meet her in the general election,” said Patmore. “Our machinery is well oiled and ready for the general election. That is where our focus is, not on this by-election.”
Patmore said he was, nonetheless, delighted that the JLP had given the nod to Dalrymple-Philibert’s return to Trelawny South because, he argued, he had long held a desire to hand her a resounding defeat.
“I am not surprised that they have selected her, but I don’t think they can do any better. It is still surprising, somewhat, since she still has her case (due to charges that flowed from the Integrity Commission’s report) in court to come back up in December, which is after the by-election,” said Patmore. “However, regardless of what happens, I am here ready and waiting to give her a sound political beating.”
Efforts to contact Dalrymple-Philibert, even through the Trelawny South councillors and other party officials, were unsuccessful.
In September last year, the Integrity Commission recommended that Dalrymple-Philibert, a practising attorney, be slapped with eight criminal charges for making a false statement in her statutory declaration filings between 2015 and 2021.
The charges relate to breaches of the Parliament (Integrity of Members) Act and the Integrity Commission Act and are connected to the purchase of a 2015 Mercedes-Benz, which she omitted from her statutory declarations for six years, and the controversial use of a 20 per cent duty concession to purchase it.