Unify the party, analysts tell PNP

Two of the island's leading political analysts, Troy Caine and Tony Myers, are questioning the level of unity inside the People's National Party (PNP) as it prepares to wrest power from the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Divided by two bruising leadership contests in 2006 and 2008, the leadership of the PNP has been struggling to convince Jamaica that supporters of party President Portia Simpson Miller and the man who gave her the stiffest challenge, Dr Peter Phillips, have buried the hatchet.

Phillips, who was recently returned to the PNP's shadow Cabinet and given the key portfolio of finance, is also directing the party's campaign machinery and has publicly stated his support for Simpson Miller.

Vocal Phillips supporters such as K.D. Knight have also hit the campaign trail while voicing their support for Simpson Miller.

Not impressed

But that has failed to convince the analysts that all is well inside the party.

"The PNP is not as solid as the JLP right now. It is trying to look unified, but it is not. There is the Portia (Simpson Miller) faction, the Peter (Phillips) faction and there is the other Peter (Bunting)," Caine claimed.

"They say they are united, but until the country is convinced that there is a unity of purpose, no one will be impressed and things will not change," charged Myers.

This was compounded last week when third-term Member of Parliament Sharon Hay-Webster resigned from the party and ripped into its leaders.

Hay-Webster, a vocal supporter of Phillips in the two presidential contests, charged that the party "... has diverged from the values of Norman Manley and Michael Manley, that of nation building, capacity building and seeking to safeguard the interests of the less fortunate ... ."

This was rejected by the leadership of the PNP which urged Hay-Webster to resign as MP for the South Central St Catherine constituency.