MONTEGO BAY, St James — Twenty-eight candidates will today vie to represent the 12 parliamentary seats up for grabs in the western parishes of Trelawny, Hanover, Westmoreland and St James, as the nation goes to the polls to elect a new Government.

MONTEGO BAY, St James — Twenty-eight candidates will today vie to represent the 12 parliamentary seats up for grabs in the western parishes of Trelawny, Hanover, Westmoreland and St James, as the nation goes to the polls to elect a new Government.

The ruling People’s National Party (PNP) and Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) are each fielding 12 candidates, while there are two independent candidates and two representatives from the National Democratic Movement (NDM).

In Trelawny, the PNP’s slate consists of Victor Wright in Trelawny Northern, Lloyd Gillings in Trelawny Southern, while in the neighbouring parish of St James its standard-bearers are Noel Donaldson, St James East Central; Ashley-Ann Foster, St James Central; Sharon Ffolkes-Abrahams, St James West Central; Derrick Kellier, St James Southern and Anthony Henry, St James North West.

The party also selected Ian Hayles in Hanover Western and Wynter McIntosh in Hanover Eastern, while in the parish of Westmoreland; Luther Buchanan is the candidate for Westmoreland Eastern, Wykeham McNeill, Westmoreland Western; and Dwayne Vaz in Westmoreland Central.

Contesting for the Opposition JLP are: Dennis Meadows, Trelawny Northern; Marissa Dalrymple Phillibert, Trelawny Southern, while in St James, Dr Horace Chang was selected in St James North Western; Heroy Clarke in St James Central; Homer Davis, St James Southern; Ed Bartlett, St James East Central and Marlene Malahoo Forte in St James West Central.

Brian Wallace and Dave Brown will contest in Hanover Western and Hanover Eastern, respectively, while in Westmoreland Andrea Walters is the party’s candidate in Westmoreland Eastern; George Wright in Westmoreland Central and Dixeth Palmer in Westmoreland Western.

Leonard Sharpe is contesting the Hanover Western seat, while Astor Black will vie for St James South on the NDM’s ticket.

And independent candidates Haile Mika’el and Toraino Beckford are contesting Westmoreland Eastern and Westmoreland Central, respectively.

With weeks of campaigning for the 12 seats out of the way, the stage is set for a number of interesting contests, particularly in the constituency of St James Central, where newcomer Foster and Clarke will do battle; St James East Central which will see the incumbent Bartlett trying to hold onto the seat he first won in 2002; St James West Central where incumbent Ffolkes-Abrahams is being challenged by Malahoo- Forte and Hanover Eastern which will see newcomers Brown and McIntosh, the Lucea mayor, battling for that seat.

In the 2011 General Election, the PNP won nine of the 12 parliamentary seats up for grabs the parish of Trelawny, Hanover, St James and Westmoreland.

But PNP chairman for Region Six Ian Hayles told party supporters at a political rally in St James on Sunday night that the party expects to increase that number when the votes are tallied tonight.

“In Region Six (Westmoreland, Hanover and St James), we won eight of the 10 seats the last time, but Comrades I want to tell you that come election day, we are going to make a clean sweep,” Hayles told party supporters.

But JC Hutchinson, the JLP Deputy Leader for Area Council Four, is confident that his party will win more seats in the western region this time around.

“We are looking very good, and expect some surprises especially in the parish of Westmoreland,” Hutchinson told the Jamaica Observer West yesterday.

The PNP has consistently won the seats in Westmoreland in all the parliamentary polls conducted there since 1989.

Yesterday, both the JLP and the PNP spend much of the time fine tuning their organisations for today’s poll.

Meanwhile, Senior members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force across the western region yesterday expressed confidence that in partnership with members of the of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), they will be in a state of readiness to provide security to ensure a peaceful election day.

Despite at least three violent incidents in the St James Police Division since the start of election campaign, the cops are guaranteeing safety for persons to exercise their franchise at all polling stations in the parish.

“We have the army partnering with us to ensure that persons can come out and vote. We have some areas, which we don’t necessarily want to say publicly, but there are areas that we will focus on (more). There are places where police and soldiers will be on the road clearly for citizens to see where they can walk to locations… locations where we know they are somewhat timid about coming out. We are going to put our presence there so that they can come out. And all the polling stations will be manned by the security forces, promised commander of the St James Police Division, SSP Steve McGgergor.

Head of the Hanover Police Division Deputy Superintendent of Police Arthey Colley also stressed that the security forces are prepared for any scenario in the parish today.

“Plans have been finalised for election day in the parish of Hanover. We will be getting additional support from the JDF so we should be in a state of readiness for any eventuality and we don’t expect any incident on election day,” DSP Colley told the Observer West.

His, counterpart in the bordering Westmoreland division, DSP David White also noted that he has plans in place, even if there are glitches.

“We are fully on chart. The police will be out in their numbers, in partnership with the soldiers.”

Commander of the Trelawny Police Division, Superintendent Clive Blair, also noted that the parish is in a state of readiness for elections today.

“We are going alright. Everything is going fine. We have two constituencies, North and South Trelawny. We will be getting assistance from the military. We will be covering all the polling stations and polling locations,” Superintendent Blair noted.