JLP on election trail

THE JAMAICA Labour Party (JLP) will kick off its general election campaign next Sunday, June 10, in western Jamaica, party leader Edward Seaga announced yesterday.

Buoyed by its biggest lead in the opinion polls - six per cent - over the ruling People's National Party (PNP) in years, and confident that its organisational machinery "won't be caught napping" as in previous elections, Mr. Seaga is predicting an "embarrassing defeat" for the PNP in elections he said could be called in the next two to three months.

The Opposition Leader was addressing party supporters at a retreat at the Stony Hill Heart Academy in St. Andrew yesterday, the third such meeting since the start of the year. The meetings are specifically aimed at reviewing each region on a constituency by constituency basis, to determine their state of readiness. Of the 60 seats to be contested, six are still to be settled.

According to Mr. Seaga, the PNP was falling apart, was "in sad shape" and was desperate. He again pointed to the high rate of unemployment, record redundancies and the fallout in the economy, particularly the financial sector, which have occurred during the PNP's 12 years in office.

He pointed out that with local government elections due by September, this year, the Government would have to indicate to Parliament sometime this month, the date for the election. "That is what the law says. They will have to call it between June and September. If the Government comes to Parliament with a Bill to postpone the local government election then you know they are postponing it to get it out of the way to go to general election as soon as possible," he said.

Mr. Seaga said the PNP was in "sad shape" with "people resigning or being forced to resign. They want to go to election now because things are falling apart faster than they can hold them together. The end is in sight and they want to try and catch it at a point where they have something left to recover," the Opposition Leader said.

Later, Mr. Seaga told The Gleaner the decision by Paul Burke not to seek re-election as Chairman of the PNP's Region Three was a "big signal (of things to come)."

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