Far from the facts
published: Saturday | July 19, 2003
THE EDITOR, Sir:
IN YOUR feature on the Maroon Town Independent Candidate, Leroy Anthony Gray, 'from the Cornwall Front Page' of The Gleaner recently, it was, to my astonishment, stated that ... "an Independent Candidate has never won an election, local or general in that constituency". Nothing could be further from the facts. A more careful research would have revealed that of all the constituencies islandwide, South St. James should be one of the few deserving of such an erroneous statement.
Back in 1947 when basically the same area was called Southeast St. James, and when it was Independents who swept those first Parochial Board (Parish Councils) Elections under Adult Suffrage, all seven Councillors elected in that constituency were Independents. And with three others from the other (Northwest) constituency, Independents took control of the St. James Parochial Board with their tally of 10 Divisions to the PNP's five and the JLP's one.
Indeed, the (first) member elected for that same Maroon Town Division (in that election) was Mr. George Fennell, an Independent who won the division with only 37.1 per cent of the votes. At a time when the constituency was held by the JLP's Robert Cecil McFarlane, Sr., the '47 P.C. polls also elected Independents: Edgar Hewan (Content), James Falconer (Somerton), Theophilus Reid (Flamstead), Oscar deLisser (Welcome Hall), Ernest Morris (Cambridge) and Phillip McLean (Catadupa).
In fact, in the second General Election in 1949, Southeast St. James became one of the last constituencies in Jamaica to elect an Independent MHR when Stanley A. Scott (that fearless school teacher at Vaughnsfield School) polled 36.4 per cent of the votes and trounced a field of six opponents - including the legendary Arthur B. Lowe, the PNP's Max Carey, the Rev. Cyril Morgan (then Ind.) and the JLP's R. Cecil McFarlane, Sr., the incumbent who ran fifth in the race. Of course, Scott would join Sir Harold Allan as the last two Independent Members elected to the House, and lost the seat (as JLP candidate) to the Rev. Morgan (as PNP) in 1955.
However, by 1951, only Somerton, with D.O. Cooke, and Flamstead, with Oscar deLisser were still controlled by Independents in Southeast St. James, as the PNP took the other five divisions and ended up controlling the Board with ten divisions. After the mid '50s, Independents started to become a rare breed in southern St. James, and in 1956 (after his flirtation with the Farmers' Party), deLisser became one of the last Independent Councillors elected in the parish when he took the Spring Mount Division with a 66 per cent poll. His Independent status formally ended in 1960 when he was elected as the JLP Councillor for the Division.
