ROSE HALL, St James — Former People’s National Party (PNP) President and Prime Minister PJ Patterson says Jamaicans would be “crazy” not to return his party to power in Thursday’s general election.

“We would be crazy as a country at this time, when for the first time at last all the fundamentals are in the right place, to talk about change, to create uncertainty, to create delay, to create confusion,” Patterson argued Saturday night at a fund-raising event in Montego Bay.

Describing the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) proposal to remove income tax under the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system for persons earning $1.5 million and under annually as “a ponzi scheme”, and “worse than a three-card trick”, Patterson said it would not be practical to implement such a proposal.

“If when they were drawing it up they had talked to Eddie (Seaga, a former JLP leader and prime minister of Jamaica), Eddie would tell them don’t do it, because Eddie tried something like that — not as foolish as that — in the 1980’s and it didn’t work. He introduced a scheme where there was a graduated tax, 30 per cent if persons were at certain levels, and 37.5 per cent at the top, and within six months he realised that nobody was earning that 37.5 per cent ,” said Patterson, who served as prime minister from 1992 to 2006.

“Let’s be practical, if you are going to get $1.5 million and pay no tax, why should you get $1.6 million to pay 25 per cent on the $1.6 million,?” he asked. “What is more is that you can’t encourage production that way. If a supervisor, for example, is going to get less money than who he or she is supervising, why should they take on that responsibility? How are you going to encourage entrepreneurial incentives in a situation like that?,” he asking further, adding that “it is voodoo economics”.

The former PNP president was speaking at a fund-raising event dubbed: ‘An Evening of Cocktails with Former Prime Minister PJ Patterson,’ in support of Ashley-Ann Foster, the party’s candidate for St James Central at the Three Palm’s Restaurant in Rose Hall, on Saturday night.

Patterson told the well-attended function that he has always had a special regard and affection for the parish of St James because he went to school in Somerton in the parish, as he urged those gathered at the $20,000-per-person event, to let St James give him “a pleasant and positive surprise” on election night.

“You in St James have to ensure that you do the correct thing and that is where you come in. In addition to the contributions that you have made by your presence here, you will also have to make a contribution by your efforts and by the skills and the energy that you are going to bring to bear between now and election day,” he argued.

In the 2011 General Election the PNP won three of the five constituencies — St James West Central, St James South and the then newly created St James Central — while the JLP won the remaining two — St James East Central and St James North West.

However, political observers have described the constituencies of St James Central, St James East Central and St James West Central, as battleground seats.

In St James Central, Foster, a 26 -year-old newcomer to representational politics, will face the JLP’s Heroy Clarke, a former councillor of the Rose Heights Division in the St James Parish Council, while in St James East Central, the JLP’s Ed Bartlett will be seeking to hold on to the seat that he won by a margin of 174 votes in the 2011 General Election.

Bartlett, a former minister of tourism will be contesting against former Montego Bay Mayor Noel Donaldson, who in 2007 unsuccessfully contested the St James South constituency on the JLP’s ticket against veteran PNP politician Derrick Kellier.

St James West Central, the other battleground seat in the parish, will be contested by the PNP’s Sharon Ffolkes Abrahams and the JLP’s spokesperson on health Marlene Malahoo Forte.

Ffolkes Abrahams won the seat by a margin of 673 votes in the 2011 General Election, while Forte was beaten by the late PNP stalwart Roger Clarke in the constituency of Westmoreland Central.