Howard Campbell and Tyrone Reid, Staff ReportersInvestigations continue into last week's alleged defacing of a People's National Party (PNP)
constituency office in St. Thomas, even as two of the leading contenders for party president step up their campaigns today.
PNP chairman, Bobby Pickersgill, refused to comment when The Sunday Gleaner contacted him yesterday regarding the stage the investigations had reached. At the time, he said, he was involved in 'one such meeting'.
On Wednesday, Dr. Peter Phillips, one of the main figures in the race to succeed P.J. Patterson as party president and Prime Minister of Jamaica, condemned an alleged attack on the constituency office of Dr. Fenton Ferguson in Morant Bay, St. Thomas. The act was allegedly committed by supporters of Portia Simpson Miller, Phillips' main rival for the PNP presidency.
Dr. Ferguson is the member of the Phillips team.
The alleged attack took place in Dr. Ferguson's Eastern St. Thomas constituency where Mrs. Simpson Miller's campaign kicked off.
Dr. Phillips said he would not condone attacks on his team, or on his opponents.
"We make no specific allegations as to who did what, but an event took place at the time the defacing took place in Morant Bay," he said.
proper conduct
"I think it is very important that the way we in the People's National Party conduct this campaign, we become a leading force for the continued transformation of our political culture into a truly democratic political culture."
Dr. Phillips and Mrs. Simpson Miller, the Local Government, Community Development and Sports Minister, are vying, along with Finance Minister Dr. Omar Davies and former Water and Housing Minister Karl Blythe, to succeed P.J. Patterson as PNP president and Prime Minister of Jamaica.
Dr. Blythe, in response to Dr. Phillips' request for the campaign rhetoric to be toned down, told The Sunday Gleaner that his opponent should preach to his own congregation.
"I think he ought to give his own supporters that advice ..." he said. Dr. Blythe boasted that he does not have to reprimand his supporters or do anything special to keep them in line, as he leads by example.
"I haven't had to do anything," he quipped. "So the leader is, so is the camp. They know what I stand for, and they do the things that are right," Dr. Blythe added.
no casualties
However, Dr. Blythe, the only party president and prime minister hopeful without a Cabinet portfolio, insisted that there would be no casualties resulting from friendly fire, as the current campaigns are a family affair.
In the interim, Dr. Davies' camp
'Campaign for Prosperity' expressed disappointment at "the behaviour elsewhere that has eroded the standards of the higher ground" to which his campaign ascribes.
"We call on others to focus on the issues. We abide by our message to create a world-class Jamaican society in 10 years ..., " read a response from Dr. Davies' campaign secretariat.
Dr. Davies pledged, "All other candidates for the post of president will be treated with the utmost respect and regard as comrades, officers of the party and Cabinet colleagues."
Dr. Phillips launches his campaign today at the National Arena, while Mrs. Simpson Miller's camp stages a forum on crime at the Jamaica Conference Centre.
Last Sunday's controversial act was another episode in the PNP leadership election which Dr. Phillips expects to take place in another few weeks.
At a Phillips rally in St. Thomas in November, Foreign Affairs Minister K.D. Knight launched what supporters of Mrs. Simpson Miller claim was a veiled swipe at her competence to become the PNP's fourth president and Jamaica's seventh prime minister.
