PNP poll says party leads in Brown’s Town division

The People’s National Party (PNP) believes it will win the next municipal election in the Brown’s Town division, which it has dominated over the past 42 years, winning six of the eight elections contested there.

This comes as it claims a poll by the party shows its candidate, Charles ‘Vance’ Clarke, showing more favourable responses over the incumbent, the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Kim Brown-Lawrence.

Documents obtained by The Gleaner show that, in response to the question, ‘Do you wish to see a change of councillor after the next municipal election?’ 54.3 per cent of respondents said yes, while 45.7 said no.

To the question, ‘Which of the two party’s candidate do you trust more to address (those) issues?’ 39.3 per cent said ‘Vance’ (PNP), 35.0 per cent said Kim (JLP), while 25.7 percent said neither of them.

To the question, ‘If an election is called, between Clarke and Brown-Lawrence, who would you vote for?’ 52.9 percent said Clarke, while 47.1 percent said Brown-Lawrence.

Prior to Brown-Lawrence’s victory over Delroy Redway of the PNP in 2016 (by 1,133 to 997 votes), the last time the JLP won the division was in 1981, when Rudolph Ashman beat the PNP’s Stanford Clarke by 1,022 to 704.

In the next election in 1986, the PNP’s Webster Gaynor scored a comprehensive 1,471-vote victory over the JLP’s Aljoe James, winning 2,397 to 926. The margin of victory remains significant, as apart from Gaynor’s next victory total of 1,725 (versus JLP’s Sherman Harris 876), no other winner of the division has totalled as many votes.

Ivan Anderson’s (PNP) 1,172 comes closest, the figure representing the 2003 election, when he beat Omar Mustafa’s (JLP) 564, and Sherman Harris, who had switched to become an independent candidate, getting 342.

A point to note is that in 1998, when the PNP’s Merlene Millin beat the JLP’s Sherman Harris (969 to 393), the total number of votes was even lower than the 1,471-vote victory margin set by Gaynor in 1986.

The 20th century

In what was the last election of the 20th century, just 26.4 percent (1,372) of the 5,201 registered voters exercised their franchise, the lowest turnout over the 42-year period being highlighted here.

In September, the PNP confirmed the re-emerging candidate Clarke, who would have learnt something from his two previous defeats to the JLP in the Gibraltar division in the 2012 and 2016 elections.

Clarke, who is chairman of the division and vice-chair of the North West constituency in charge of planning and organisation, was beaten in 2012 by Anthony Walker (1,233 to 800) and then by Cardell Wickham (1,368 to 453).

Based on the polls, the history of the division, and the fact that he had been working the division for a while, Clarke’s confidence would have been boosted.

“I was working with the aspiring candidate who was there before,” Clarke told The Gleaner in a telephone interview recently.

He said the experience from the two previous campaigns would serve as lessons going forward. Identifying the needs of the people and the communities, working closer with the people from the division in order to identify and solve their problems, is going to be his approach.

The most important thing to get actioned, he pointed out, was proper political representation.

He said four major issues that are currently affecting the residents of Brown’s Town and surrounding communities are garbage collection; the market, in spite of millions of dollars being spent on it; and, over the past few years, traffic congestion as well as the perennial water crisis.

“The biggest one now is the water crisis. When Brown’s Town had 100 houses it was one little pump. Now that has multiplied a thousand times; you cannot have the same size pump supplying this new need. The other day, for four months straight, we had no water in Brown’s Town,” Clarke pointed out.

He said while the unreliable water system was a problem, when there is water there is another problem, that of leaking water pipes.

According to Clarke: “Once the water comes, every street has water running down to Standfast, leaking pipes are all over the place. Right in front of the market, whenever that area is wet, you know water is in Brown’s Town. When you go up St Hilda’s Road and you see water running down, you know water is in Brown’s Town. So, those are the four major concerns in the town right now that need to be addressed, like yesterday.”

editorial@gleanerjm.com