By Roy Sanford, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
EDWARD SEAGA was yesterday nominated unopposed as Leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), at the party's Area Council Four meeting in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland.
At the same time, Edmund Bartlett and Dr. Horace Chang were both nominated as deputy leaders of the party.
This is the third Area Council meeting at which Mr. Seaga has been nominated for the top job unopposed. Mr. Bartlett, an incumbent deputy leader, says Area Council Four fully supported Mr. Seaga's leadership. The posts of leader and deputy leaders will be voted for at the JLP's annual conference on November 8 and 9 at the National Arena in Kingston.
"We are behind him and nobody will give the JLP a timetable in terms of its leadership," he said.
Area Council Four consists of the parishes of St. Elizabeth, Hanover, St. James, Westmoreland and Trelawny.
SATISFIED WITH NOMINATIONS
Both Mr. Bartlett and Dr. Chang expressed satisfaction with their nominations. "I offered myself for nomination because I bring added dimension to the leadership of the JLP and will be able to take Area Four to a winning level," Dr. Chang told reporters after the nominations. "I am confident that we will win and take the entire team forward."
Mr. Bartlett said his nomination was a statement that his services were still required in the party.
"The fact is that we have worked so hard over the years taking this region from zero position," he stated. "When I came here in 1995, we had lost all our caretakers in this region, including the candidate who is going to challenge me now, and I brought them all back in."
Both men denied that their nominations have divided the JLP in Area Four. "This is absolutely not true," Mr. Bartlett said. "Dr. Chang and I have the greatest relationship and we have a common vision in terms of where the party must go."
Dr. Chang said that certain divisions among individuals were only signs of the energy, commitment and interests of individuals on the local level.
"What we will ensure at the leadership level is that we conduct ourselves in a sense to send a signal that we are one team," he said.
