Former PNP candidate to shore up support in Clarendon SE
DERRICK Lambert, the former People’s National Party (PNP) candidate for Clarendon South Eastern, seems set to contest the March 2 parliamentary by-election as an independent candidate.
In fact, Lambert, along with members of the PNP angered by the party’s decision not to contest the by-election, are set to meet with constituents today to shore up support ahead of tomorrow’s nomination day exercise.
“If you know anything about Mr Lambert’s history, he was a scout, and the motto of a scout is to always be prepared for any eventualities, possibilities [and] opportunities — that’s the motto,” Lambert told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.
The former PNP caretaker lost by 107 votes in the 2011 parliamentary election — the year the PNP thrashed the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) by winning 42 of 63 seats.
That year, Lambert polled 8,736 to the 8,843 tallied by the JLP’s Rudyard Spencer. A 50 per cent voter turnout was recorded.
A source in the PNP informed the Observer yesterday that Lambert’s decision to wean himself of the party was fuelled by its decision to forgo the by-election.
The source also said that some in the PNP are of the view that it is unacceptable for the Opposition party to allow the JLP’s candidate to go uncontested in a seat the PNP can win.
In a statement last Wednesday, the PNP said its candidate Patricia Duncan Sutherland, who replaced Lambert for the February 2016 General Election, would not be contesting the by-election announced by Prime Minister Andrew Holness a day after Spencer announced his resignation in Parliament.
The party described Spencer’s departure from representational politics as a “hurried and contrived resignation”, and argued that his resignation has not been occasioned by any personal or national emergency, but by the political exigencies of the JLP to settle the political wrangling between senators Pearnel Charles Jr and Robert Morgan. Charles Jr is expected to be nominated tomorrow as the JLP’s candidate.
The PNP further stated that it is unreasonable to ask Jamaicans to provide the Electoral Office of Jamaica with $30 million to pay for a “contrived by-election” when general elections, expecting to cost over $1 billion, are due within months.
“The People’s National Party respects the right of the people of South East Clarendon to have parliamentary representation, but has no intention of following the JLP into this unnecessary and wasteful political exercise which will be a carnival of spending State resources, as were the cases in the two previous by-elections,” the statement said.
Despite this, the JLP said that it would proceed to nominate its candidate and noted that its decision is not dependent on the PNP’s actions.
