Caught by surprise in Hanover Eastern nomination exercise

WESTERN BUREAU:

Electoral officers at the Hanover Eastern constituency in Sandy Bay, Hanover, were taken to task by a man whose application to run as an independent candidate was flatly rejected as his name was not found on the voters’ list.

Forty-year-old businessman, O’Keefe Gocool, who gave his address as Round Hill Estate, Hanover, presented at exactly 11 seconds after the centre opened and told officers that he wished to represent the people of the Hopewell division in which he lives.

He was surprised, however, after checks by the electoral officers revealed that his name was not on any of the voters’ lists for the constituency of Hanover Eastern.

But Gocool was adamant that he had the right to be nominated, according to the Jamaican Constitution, and insisted on being processed.

The returning officer advised him that his name has to be on a voters’ list for him to be nominated as a candidate.

Despite his protestations, he was turned away and told to lodge his complaint with the Electoral Commission of Jamaica’s regional office in Catherine Hall, Montego Bay, St James.

“The constitution gives me the right to be nominated, and I want to be nominated, and you will not hear the end of this,” Gocool stated.

They day’s proceedings later saw three Jamaica Labour Party candidates nominated. They are Kaydeen Miles of the Chester Castle Division, Devon Brown of the Hopewell Division, and Oraldo Anderson of the Sandy Bay Division.

The People’s National Party candidates nominated were Wynter McIntosh for Chester Castle, Lennox Fray for Hopewell, and the incumbent Deputy Mayor Andria Dehaney-Grant for Sandy Bay.

Sitting Member of Parliament for Hanover Eastern, Dave Brown of the JLP, expressed confidence in his party’s chances at securing control of the Hanover Municipal Corporation (HMC) this time around.

“I am pretty confident that all three seats are there for the taking, as we presently have two of the three, and the timing is right for us to take the third also,” he said.

“Controlling the HMC has eluded the JLP for quite some time, and, in all fairness, that has handicapped me and my work as member of parliament,” he stated.

While conceding that there are some bad roads across the Hanover Eastern constituency, Brown said that repair work would soon begin.

Meanwhile, Andrea Purkiss, the aspiring PNP candidate for Member of Parliament for Hanover Eastern, who was out in support of her candidates, said the main task would be to get the party supporters out to vote on election day.

“I believe that the candidates are feeling the pinch as much as the people within their respective divisions, and so, to fail the people of their divisions will amount to failing themselves,” she opined.

She was confident of the chances of the party’s three candidates. “So our (PNP) candidates are local, they live in their respective areas, they go home to their division daily. There is a different type of connection there,” she emphasised.