Furious objections by the women of the People’s National Party over the reinstatement of Government Member of Parliament George Wright which they branded as “low, desperate and disgusting” were on Tuesday dismissed by the youth arm of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) as “tribal, politically opportunistic, and hypocritical”.

The Opposition women, led by Deputy General Secretary Nekeisha Burchell, staged a press conference in protest against the readmission of the Westmoreland Central Member of Parliament to the JLP, following what the party described as “mitigating actions”.

Wright has been mired in controversy since April 2021 when a video of a man hitting a woman repeatedly with a stool emerged. The couple was said to be Wright and his then common-law companion. Both Wright and the woman were interviewed separately by the police in the presence of their attorneys but neither were interested in pursuing the matter further. Wright and his partner have since been wed.

Wright subsequently resigned from the JLP after it indicated that he would be withdrawing from the party’s Parliamentary Caucus and has been attending Parliament as an Independent. However, on Sunday the party announced that its membership committee had reviewed Wright’s application and considered the circumstances which led to his independent status, along with the mitigating actions he has since taken to be readmitted.

On Tuesday, Burchell, speaking at the press conference at the Office of the Opposition Leader, said, “The reinstatement of George Wright to the Jamaica Labour Party is not just an insult to the women of this country, it is a declaration by the Jamaica Labour Party that politics matters more than justice and morality. It is a betrayal of every woman who has suffered in silence. Every survivor was told their pain doesn’t matter and every little girl what our country, what our Government is willing to tolerate in the name of politics”.

She further encouraged Jamaicans to retaliate by refusing to give their votes to the 14 female candidates in the governing party.

“So when the women, in particular, of the Jamaica Labour Party visit you at home in the coming months to ask you to vote for them and to vote for the signal declaration they have made, stand up, Jamaica, respond to the silence they have given you with your vote, remind them that they were silent when George Wright was welcomed back to the fold of the Jamaica Labour Party to represent you,” Burchell said.

President of the People’s National Party Women’s Movement Patricia Duncan Sutherland, in her remarks, said, “George Wright has not denied that he was the man in the video and if they were to say that mitigating circumstances are the reason they are accepting that he should once again be a part of the Jamaica Labour Party and the Government Caucus, then they need to tell the public what those mitigating circumstances are.”

“Marrying the person that you abuse does not stop the abuse from occurring, it just means the abused is in a situation that is even more devastating because they get into a deeper trap of abuse. The act of this Government of bringing back George Wright and saying they are going to put him back as a candidate in the next general elections is psychological and emotional abuse on every woman that has experienced domestic violence in this country because it tells them that Jamaica will accept domestic violence as a normal part of life,” she said further.

Dr Angela Brown-Burke, party chair and spokeswoman on foreign affairs and trade, derided what she said was “the JLP’s deception, the big lie in presenting George Wright as an independent member while he was clearly supporting their agenda”.

“This was a farce, this was a shame perpetrated by a Parliament with the largest number of women in our history making that even deeper shame… it is another punch to the gut of every survivor of domestic violence and in particular survivors of intimate partner violence. Where is the public apology, where is the admission of guilt and wrong, where is the remorse?” Brown-Burke said.

But Generation 2000 (G2K), the JLP’s young professionals affiliate, fired back in a statement declaring that “issues of gender-based violence and rehabilitation are far too serious to be addressed in the tribal, politically opportunistic, and hypocritical manner in which women from the PNP approached these issues”.

The group further chastised “the women of the PNP” for being “eerily silent when several of their own were arrested and charged with serious alleged criminal acts of physical violence”.

“The PNP women staged a media conference and castigated the re-admission of George Wright to the Jamaica Labour Party, despite the fact that Wright, who was the subject of speculation but was never charged, has taken several mitigating steps, including two years of counselling, and has committed himself to marriage,” G2K said.

“G2K commiserates with every victim of domestic violence and is encouraged that the Jamaica Labour Party Administration is committed to protecting women from gender-based violence, including the opening of shelters, moves to further strengthen the Domestic Violence Act, the passage of the Sexual Harassment Act, and the establishment of a hotline. Jamaica deserves a better and more consistent approach from women who aspire to lead our country than what was displayed today by the PNP women at their media conference,” the group said further.

Wright, when contacted by the Jamaica Observer, said he was already at the sitting of the Parliament and would not be able to speak.

Efforts to contact Olivia “Babsy” Grange, the Gender Affairs Minister who also chairs the JLP’s women’s caucus, were unsuccessful.