JUNCTION, St Elizabeth — Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller warned Comrades on Saturday night to be wary of those who would try to buy their votes or pay them to simply stay away from polling stations come election day, December 29.

Addressing thousands of People’s National Party (PNP) supporters in Junction, South East St Elizabeth, Simpson Miller said she had heard of one particularly underhanded plot to keep Comrades away from the voting booth.

“I have heard it, they are going to come to PNP people with money and ink in hand and say ‘take this, dip your finger and when the PNP come around tell them you vote already’,” the Opposition leader said.

She urged young people — whom she appeared to suggest could be particularly vulnerable — to reject such overtures. “You are the future leaders, you are the future of this country, don’t allow them to come to you…,” she said.

She claimed the gift of fertiliser to farmers was another ploy being used by the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) to win support. However, she warned farmers to be “careful” since “one-off gifts of fertiliser will not manage your farms for five years to come”.

The PNP’s mass meeting in the centre of Junction, the principal town in SE St Elizabeth followed a JLP rally — just metres away — addressed by Prime Minister Andrew Holness on the previous night. Once considered a “safe” PNP seat, SE St Elizabeth was taken by the JLP in 2007 with Frank Witter defeating Norman Horne by 456 votes.

Businessman Richie Parchment is now challenging Witter for the seat which is again expected to be closely run.

With the general elections also expected to be close, political observers say the SE St Elizabeth seat is crucial for both parties.

On Saturday night Simpson Miller who had earlier toured sections of neighbouring Manchester, pledged her “full support” for Parchment and voiced confidence that he will excel as the people’s representative in Parliament.

Simpson Miller also used the occasion to yet again criticise the leadership of Holness since he took over as prime minister in October following the resignation of Bruce Golding.

She scoffed at claims by the prime minister that he was “decisive” and committed to transparency.

“If he is decisive, why is it the president of the pharmaceutical society is not back on the job? If he is so decisive, why is it that there is not one peep from him about chairs and carpets (that went missing from the convention centre in Montego Bay)? What about the missing sand (stolen from beach front property in Trelawny in 2008) when one minister of government said “a thief is a thief is a thief?” asked Simpson Miller.

She said she found it strange that the prime minister had not responded firmly to a break-in at the offices of Insport, which is said to have led to the disappearance of files and a fire at the offices of the National Solid Waste Authority which destroyed documents. The incidents are said to have occurred in the context of planned audits by the Auditor General’s Department.

Earlier, party general secretary Peter Bunting and campaign coordinator for St Elizabeth, KD Knight, also assailed Holness’s credibility.

Titling his presentation the “dissection of deception”, Knight claimed that had Holness been “serious about dealing with corruption” he would have invalidated the candidacy of a number of JLP aspirants in the upcoming elections because of alleged misdeeds or suspicions of misdeeds.

Bunting listed a range of issues which he suggested qualified as corrupt or criminal behaviour which had been “covered up” with alleged perpetrators walking free while “a man tief three dozen pods of ackee an him get three months in prison”.

That perceived disparity in the dispensation of justice reflected one of the fundamental differences between the PNP and JLP, Bunting claimed.

“In a PNP administration it will be the same law for the Meads and Persians … who fi wear short pants must wear short pants,” Bunting declared.