Blythe offers to referee PNP standoff in Western Westmoreland
Published:Tuesday | July 18, 2023 | 1:23 AMErica Virtue/Senior Gleaner Writer -
With fears that the current political imbroglio in Westmoreland Western is a mirror image of the near disaster in St Ann South East for the People's National Party (PNP), in the 2020 general elections, a political veteran has stepped forward with a white flag and a promise to listen and be fair to all sides.
The move is in an effort to take back the seat won by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) after it was held by the McNeills for decades.
Veteran comrade and former PNP Vice President Dr Karl Blythe has volunteered his services to the warring internal party factions in the constituency to salvage the stalemate between the different groups opposed to the candidacy of current vice president Ian Hayles.
PNP sources in the constituency have identified the current blow-up as one between the now independent councillor’s and fellow PNP councillors; councillors opposed to Hayles as candidate, and councillors divorcing from the PNP.
Blythe told The Gleaner yesterday that a date is yet to be set but the three renegade PNP-elected councillors have all said they are ‘prepared to talk’.
“I discussed it with the (party) leader and he has no objections. I will be meeting with them, depends on whether they want to meet with me. They say they want to, but they have not yet set the date. But I am willing an ready whenever they want to meet,” Blythe said.
MCNEILLS RULED SUPREME
The councillors are vigorously opposed to Hayles, but General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell describes the situation as tantamount to anarchy.
“If the party allowed councillors to determine who a candidate should be in a particular constituency, then what happens when they fall out with that person? Just imagine how many candidates and members of parliament would be removed by councillors. That’s anarchy,” Campbell told The Gleaner.
The seat was last held by the PNP through another party vice president, Dr Wykeham McNeill and, before him, his father Dr Kenneth McNeill. They have had decades of representation.
Blythe agreed with the general secretary that the party’s constitution is clear about the selection process. Delegates are allowed to vote, but the successful candidates must get 50 per cent plus one of the total numbers of delegates votes.
Where that does not happen, the party president has the right to select a candidate, after consultation. The final choice remains with the party president.
“Dr Campbell is perfectly right. The PNP has a constitution and we must follow it. We can’t break it to suit anybody because the party is bigger than any one person. It cannot take the position that it is bending back, diverting from the constitution to suit any one person,” he explained.
Some of the councillors have charged that Hayles was selected by delegates from ‘paper groups’ he formed. However, all candidates and councillors are allowed to form groups of 10 or more members. Constituencies are not allowed to have more groups than the number of polling divisions. Where such breaches occur, the party corrects them with an audit or merger.
PARTY MUST LISTEN TO EVERYONE
Still another veteran, Desmond Leaky, has warned the party to be careful, urging it to listen to everyone.
Leaky, who first won on the PNP ticket from 1972 to1980 and again from 1989 to 1997, warned the party must be careful it does not ‘end up like’ St Ann South East where the councillors revolted against Lisa Hanna. A magisterial recount was the final arbiter of the seat the day after the 2020 general election. Hanna was returned by a 31-vote majority.
She will not be seeking re-election.
“This is a seat that is coming from a 5,000 vote majority for the PNP and it came down to an almost loss under Lisa Hanna. We have lost Western Westmoreland, so they don’t plan to regain it? You cannot have a constituency where the MP and the councillor are not speaking. This situation is almost a mirror image,” said Leaky, a former parliamentary secretary and minister of agriculture under the Manley Administration of the 1970s.
He believes the PNP must begin its groundwork to retain the seat held by newcomer Moreland Wilson.
“The party’s leadership must be careful that in seeking to heal the wounds it does not cause inflammation. Once they arrive at an amicable solution it is a seat they must retake,” said Leaky.
But Blythe does not believe the situations are similar.
“It is different. You have to look at the strength of the councillors. The St Ann councillors and the Westmoreland councillors do not have the same political strength. The Westmoreland councillors are stronger,” he said.
Meanwhile, Councillor Garfield James acknowledged that Blythe has initiated contact with a view to having discussions. James represents the Sheffield division and withdrew from the race with Hayles for the party’s candidacy.
“I am not an unreasonable person and not a tribalist. He is the one who reached out that he is willing to talk, so I am willing to participate in any reasonable request,” he told The Gleaner yesterday.
Councillor Ian Myles, of the Little London division, and Layton McKenzie of the Grange Hill division could not be reached yesterday. Several attempts to reach Hayles by telephone since Friday have also been unsuccessful.
Last week, the three councillors voted with the JLP councillors to remove Danree Delancy (Bethel Town division) as deputy mayor. Delancy has served in that position for 12 years in the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation, which is a PNP-controlled body, although all the members of parliament in the parish are from the ruling JLP.