A decision on when the party positions left vacant after recent changes in the officer corps of the People’s National Party (PNP) will be filled will be made by its high council next month.

The PNP is now without a vice president, following the elevation of Portia Simpson Miller, who served for 28 years in that position before she was elected party president on February 25 at the special delegates conference to choose a successor to PJ Patterson.

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The party will also be electing a general secretary following the decision by Burchell Whiteman to retire from active political life.

Whiteman, an educator by profession, has given up his seat in the Senate and signalled that he would not accept a new Cabinet appointment during the change of leadership, having served with Patterson as education minister and later as information minister.

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PNP chairman Robert Pickersgill said the relevant groups have not yet discussed the issue.

“The NEC meeting next month will make a decision about those vacancies. Recommendations will be taken to the meeting after the executive and officers have met. The NEC will then take a decision,” Pickersgill told the Sunday Observer.

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Insiders suggest that the party would look to fill the general secretary’s post immediately, but might wait until the next party conference, usually held in September, to fill the vice-presidential slot, one of four in the party. The other three are held by Dr Peter Phillips, Dr Karl Blythe and Dr Paul Robertson.

“The general secretary is usually elected by the NEC at the first meeting after annual conference,” said Julian Robinson, a deputy general secretary.

“You will admit, however, that the circumstances are special, and there is a need to have such a person in place,” he said Friday, apparently referring to the planning and organisation that has to be done in the run-up to elections due by 2007.

The general secretary is the primary driver of the party’s machinery, said Robinson, adding that he had no interest in the post.

But two of the other three deputy general secretaries are being touted as possible contestants. None of the two could be contacted Friday.

The other three deputies are Maureen Webber, Colin Campbell and Linton Walters.virtuee@jamaicaobserver.com

Whiteman served as general secretary for two-and-half years.