MONTEGO BAY, St James — Their campaign strategies are somewhat different, but both Heroy Clarke of the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and his opponent, the People’s National Party ‘s (PNP) Ashley-Ann Foster, are brimming with confidence ahead of Thursday’s polls for the St James Central parliamentary seat.

Foster, a 26- year-old attorney-at-law, whose campaign appears to be heavily-funded, has been working assiduously to hold on to the seat, which was first won by publisher Lloyd B Smith by a slim margin of 98 votes when he beat Clarke in the 2011 General Election.

The young attorney has hired a public relations team; brought into the constituency a slew of party stalwarts, including Phillip Paulwell, Dr Omar Davies, Ronnie Thwaites, KD Knight, Dr Peter Phillips, Ian Hayles, representatives of the PNP’s Women’s Movement on different occasions over the past few weeks, amidst much fanfare and hype, in a bid to bolster her chances of winning the seat.

Her campaign team has also implemented a number of social initiatives in sections of the constituency and held several spot meetings, while a slew of advertisements, both in the print and electronic, have been running frequently in the media, also as part of Foster’s massive campaign activities.

Clarke’s campaign, on the other hand, is rather low-keyed.

But according to him, it is deliberate.

“My campaign is very low-keyed, very low-keyed, and it’s for a good reason. In 2011 (General Election) we thought that the glamour and hype would have taken us home, but we later realised that that’s not what the people of St James Central wanted. What they need in St James Central is a chance to dialogue with their representatives and that’s why you will find us even at 10:00 pm going house to house,” Clarke told the Jamaica Observer Friday afternoon while campaigning with a handful of party workers in the Princess Street area of the constituency.

A businessman and a former councillor at the St James Parish Council, Clarke added that he is pleased with his campaign activities.

“My campaign has been going very well. We are not out net fishing ,what we are actually out doing is spearfishing. You meet me, I meet you; you tell me your concerns and I tell you my plans to address them,” he stated.

He told the Sunday Observer that less than a year after he was defeated by Smith in the then newly created seat, he began to put the necessary structures in place “to boost my chances in the next general election.

“We started the work since 2012, which is a structured work in which we understood what happened in 2011, and we cannot allow it to be our downfall this time around. We understand that it’s a numbers game and, therefore, for that reason, we are spearfishing,” said Clarke, adding that his team in recent years “has done a lot of enumeration”.

In the 2011 General Election, there were approximately 24,991 electors in the constituency, of which 45.4 per cent cast ballots.

But that number of electors has since increased to over 28,000.

Clarke believes that he will win the seat for his party by roughly 300 votes.

Foster, for her part, expects to retain the seat for the PNP by no fewer than 500 votes.

“I am a formidable candidate, I have a great team. I am campaigning as Ashley-Ann Foster for the PNP, but the People’s National Party is bigger than Ashley-Ann Foster, so my super campaign team, my workers and the organisation of the People’s National Party will bring home this seat again, and I know I will be winning by over 500 votes,” she said confidently.

The constituency of St James Central has the largest concentration of inner-city communities in the parish. It encompasses communities such as Salt Spring, Melbourne, Porto Bello, Irwin, Rose Heights, Farm Heights, Rose Mount, Rose Mount Gardens, Albion, Appleton Hall, Canterbury and sections of the downtown area of the resort city of Montego Bay, including the historic Sam Sharpe Square.

Both Foster and Clarke agree that the next member of parliament for St James Central will have to address the myriad of issues impacting negatively on the constituency.

These include crime; lack of employment, particularly amongst the youth; infrastructural development in most of the communities; the lack of water; and the need for skills training.

“The development of Montego Bay with St James Central as the nucleus, with a great focus on tourism and ensuring that our tourism dollars are felt by the average man on the street will also have to be addressed,” Foster added.

She believes that she is the better person suited to represent the constituency.

“I am a formidable candidate because I have the spiritual upbringing, the intellectual acumen, the education training, my party believes in an ideology of equity and upward mobility of all Jamaicans, and I also have a strong commitment to serve, and I am deeply rooted and grounded in my constituency,” she stressed.

She added that when elected, she plans to work with a raft of government and non-governmental organisations in an effort to address the ills of the constituency.

Clarke, for his part, said that among the areas that will be given priority attention during his tenure will be early childhood education; a revolving loan fund for young entrepreneurs; skills training; and the basic social needs, such as water, electricity and roads.

Karlene Johnson, a resident of Princess Street in the constituency told the Sunday Observer that she would like the next MP to address the poor road conditions in her community and to provide employment for the youth.

“Most of them (youth) in my community are not working and the roads are very bad, so I would really like to see the new MP address those. We are tired of the situation that we are in, so we believe that we need a change, so we are going to give Mr Clarke a chance,” said Johnson, admitting that she is a JLP supporter.

PNP supporter Carl Randall, who resides in the Cornwall Courts community, believes that Foster should be given the job to move the constituency forward.

“As far as I am concerned she is a hard worker. I am surprised that as a young person she is up and down so much. She is flexible and she is strong…. so I think we should get her the chance because we need some good roads, and I know that she will help children to go to school and to get jobs for people,” said Randall, claiming that he was “born a PNP”.

Political observer Chris Hylton said he is not convinced by the message that is being expounded by both Foster and Clarke on the campaign trail.

“The message that both candidates are advancing is not convincing; it is not the kind of message that young people would want to gravitate towards. There is no message of hope,” Hylton argued.

“When you look at the demography of the constituency, you will see that almost 90 per cent of the St James Central constituency is comprised of inner-city areas, where the infrastructure is appalling, where there is massive unemploment, the housing stock is deplorable, roads are in a bad state, lack of water … and I am not hearing the candidates speaking about how they are going to address these issues in an concrete way.”

Hylton is predicting that unless the candidates convince the constituents how they are going to address the raft of social ills in the constituency in a substantial manner, he expects to see a low voter turnout in the battle for St James Central on Thursday.