Adrian Frater, News Editor
Dr. Karl Blythe surrounded by delegates. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
Western Bureau:
AT AGE 58, Dr. Karl Blythe, the Member of Parliament for Central Westmoreland, has his sights set on becoming the next president of the ruling People's National Party (PNP) and ultimately prime minister of Jamaica.
While he has not occupied a ministerial position since he resigned as Water and Housing Minister in 2002, Dr. Blythe remains immensely popular among party delegates.
In the PNP vice-presidential race earlier this year, Dr. Blythe surprised all and sundry by accumulating the strongest delegate support.
SPENDING TIME IN THE FIELD
Since he has been out of the Cabinet, the confident Dr. Blythe, who was first elected Member of Parliament in 1989 at the age of 43 and became a government minister eight years later, has reportedly been spending a lot of time in the field, building up what he hopes will be an unstoppable machinery in his quest to lead Jamaica.
In his constituency, Dr. Blythe is highly revered for his proactive style of leadership, which some said led to his NHDC/Operation Pride problems, from which he has since been vindicated by the Ken Rattray Report of 2003.
"Nobody can touch Dr. Blythe in Central Westmoreland because he has performed," said Mrs. Maureen Hibbert-Forrester, a resident of Savanna-la-Mar, "When it comes to providing good roads, land and water, this man is the boss."
In fact, outside of the Roaring River community, where some residents are blaming him for the plan by the Ministry of Water to relocate them out of concern that they might contaminate the parish's primary source of domestic water, Dr. Blythe enjoys cult-like reverence in Westmoreland.
